The timing on this Bookseller profile of Michael Connelly is awfully good considering that my ARC of CRIME BEAT arrived only yesterday. But here's the UK spin on the #1 bestselling crime writer's collection of the best of his journalism pieces from back when he was the crime reporter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and the LA Times:

Connelly's first exposure to the world of crime had come long before he even graduated in journalism, when at the age of 16 he was working nights as a dishwasher in a Florida hotel. One evening he witnessed a suspicious-looking man dumping a package in a hedge. It turned out to be a gun; someone had been shot dead during a robbery nearby and the bag contained the murder weapon. Connelly, the sole witness, was interviewed at length by the detective bureau that night, but the killer was never found.

"That night of being immersed in the police department and being interviewed repeatedly by these detectives, who seemed to me very hardened individuals, this really impressed something upon me," says Connelly. "That's when I started being fascinated with their lives and how they worked. From that point I was reading crime newspapers every day, true crime, mystery novels."

As it happens, Connelly is especially appreciative of his UK readership -- especially because he tends to read non-American authors if he can. "I enjoy reading crime novels that aren't set in the United States for escapism--if they're set in America, I find myself analysing them. I find I can escape more if I'm reading Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson, Val McDermid or Mo Hayder."