James Queally from the L.A. Times profiles Mitzi Roberts, longtime detective and the inspiration behind some of Michael Connelly‘s most compelling novels.
Mitzi Roberts always wanted to talk to serial killers.
A Los Angeles bartender and diner manager, Roberts was used to seeing cops stagger into her establishments, seeking a bite or a beer after their shift. Conversation between the investigators and Roberts, a self-described true-crime “fanatic,” came easily.
She told them of her desire to chase predators. At some point, one of them suggested a career change.
The move from diner manager to detective set Roberts on a career path that saw her climb the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department — from a graveyard shift that is sometimes home to cops who have “screwed up” to a treasured spot in the elite Robbery-Homicide Division. After years spent fighting an uphill battle as a woman traversing a department long regarded as a boys’ club, Roberts found herself zipping around the southeastern United States on a collision course with one of America’s most prolific killers.
The veteran detective’s career history may read like it borrows a bit from the jacket copy of a popular crime novel, but it’s actually the other way around. In her 24-year career, Roberts has not only found herself involved in some of L.A.’s most infamous cases, but she’s also served as a muse to the city’s modern master of detective fiction.
In recent years, Roberts became the inspiration for Renee Ballard, the newest protagonist to grace the pages of Michael Connelly‘s bestselling novels. Ballard — a Hollywood Division detective exiled from Robbery-Homicide who shares Roberts’ real-life love of surfing, knack for swift verbal jabs and dogged dedication to the job — is more than just a passing interest for Connelly. According to the author, Ballard could one day replace Harry Bosch, the beleaguered LAPD detective who appears in 22 of his novels.
“I write in real time. My characters age, and Bosch is aging out,” Connelly says. “Hopefully, I’m gonna be writing longer than Bosch is gonna be detecting, so it was kind of like looking for a new protagonist to carry on.”
Connelly says most of his protagonists — including Bosch, reporter Jack McEvoy and Mickey Haller of “Lincoln Lawyer” fame — are amalgams of individuals in his personal and professional lives. But Ballard is the first to emerge from a single source of inspiration.
“It was all there. I didn’t have to look for anything else,” he says of his decision to base Ballard on Roberts. “She was completely open with me and willing to work with me … it’s almost as if you went to one of your best friends and you said, ‘Help me out,’ and they said, ‘Of course.'”
Spend a few minutes with Roberts and it’s easy to see how she might fit neatly inside the pages of a crime novel. She’s quick with an insult, but quicker with a smile, able to put someone at ease or on the back foot almost at will.
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