This new, revised version of Power in the Blood more closely matches my style, my voice, my approach to the novel today than the original version from twenty years ago. However, since I kept the characters, plot, and structure of the original, this new version is a hybrid—neither completely the novel I would have written back then, nor the one I would write today.

This is a remodel instead of new construction. I kept the bones of the original book, the foundation, some of the wiring, walls, and plumbing, but rebuilt and repurposed and redid most everything else. This new version is not a completely new house, but neither is it an old one either. In that way, I believe it shows the first-time novelist I was and the twenty-sixth-time novelist I’ve become.

The writer I’ve become has increasingly been about what I leave out as much as what I put in. Saying more, evoking more, discovering more with less—fewer words, less exposition, less explanation—has been the biggest part of my particular evolution. And this new version of Power in the Blood reflects that. Whatever else it is, it’s cleaner, leaner prose, and closer to my authentic style, my true voice.

I hope you enjoy this version of Power in the Blood, that it serves as a good introduction to John Jordan. And, most importantly of all, I hope you see in it the seeds of what the series will become and want to journey with John throughout the entirety of the books featuring him, however many books that ultimately turns out to be.

Michael Lister

January 2017

Michael Connelly Introduction

It’s hard to write a book. You have to keep so many plates spinning on sticks. You’ve got the plot. You’ve got the place you are writing about. You’ve got the what-happens-next plate that can never wobble. You’ve got the momentum plate. You’ve got the humor plate. And the compassion plate. And I could go on and on. You’ve got the need to blend all of these things together into one act and keep them spinning, always spinning. Oh, and did I mention that you are holding all of these sticks up and spinning all of these plates while walking on a tight rope? No, wait, walking would be too easy. Change that. You are actually riding a tricycle on a tight rope.

Yes, it’s a major high wire act, fraught with danger and failure, and that wire is the most important part of the whole thing. That high wire is character, and the whole thing comes crashing down plates and all if you don’t have it right. If that wire is not taut and reliable and secure. If that character is not one for the ages.