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As the premiere of Bosch: Legacy looms, fans of author Michael Connelly‘s books have wondered for years now whether his newer Los Angeles Police Department detective character Renée Ballard would be introduced to the Bosch TV universe. At a California Book Club talk where Connelly spoke to Detective Mitzi Roberts, the inspiration for Ballard, he confirmed that he hopes to bring her character to television.
Renée Ballard made her debut in Connelly’s 2017 novel The Late Show. A detective who worked the late shift at Hollywood Station, Bosch’s old division, Ballard liked to collect cases to work solo and was as driven as Bosch in solving her cases. The way she bent the rules and worked the system with help from some female allies in the LAPD showed more nuance than Bosch’s methods. In Connelly’s next novels, Ballard would meet Bosch while he was working his cold cases and began to see him as a mentor as they teamed up to form a secret squad of two mavericks. Like recognized like and Bosch saw himself in Ballard’s relentlessness.
Ballard’s inspiration Det. Mitzi Roberts is a 25-year veteran in the LAPD, having served in the elite Robbery-Homicide Division and is currently an investigator in the Cold Case Homicide Unit. Many retired detectives still work Cold Cases to close previously unsolved homicides. She was instrumental in arresting Samuel Little in 2012, a serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women over more than two decades. She has served as a technical advisor for the show, often correcting the writers so they didn’t write “TV stuff” and moving them towards a more authentic and accurate depiction of police work. She also had cameo appearances on the show. Amy Aquino has imitated her mannerisms when she played Bosch’s boss, Lieutenant Billings, in the original show. Roberts also trained Maddie Lintz so she would run and move like a cop authentically when Maddie Bosch becomes a rooker LAPD officer in Bosch: Legacy. The Cold-Case unit Roberts works in inspired the unit that the retired Bosch currently volunteers for in the novels.
Connelly said that he intends to introduce Ballard to the Bosch TV series where the two of them would team up as they do in the novels, but as of now, there is no date when she would make her debut. She would become part of the legacy he wants to leave behind. Bosch: Legacy premieres on Friday, May 6th, on Amazon FreeVee.
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