Michael Connelly and Rick Jackson
April 5 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
$
A Benefit for the Eugene O’Neill Foundation, Tao House
Michael Connelly and Rick Jackson
Return to
The Village Theatre
Saturday, April 5, 2025
7:30 P.M.
Last year New York Times # 1 bestselling crime fiction author Michael Connelly was interviewed by retired LAPD homicide detective Rick Jackson. The tickets sold out weeks in advance, so act now to secure your spot!
This time Michael and Rick will switch chairs. Michael will interview Rick and his coauthor Matthew McGough about their new nonfiction book Black Tunnel White Magic: A Murder, a Detective’s Obsession, and 90’s Los Angeles on the Brink. A free copy will be given to all ticket buyers.
Michael and Rick will also reminisce about their longtime collaboration that has included most of Connelly’s novels, the “Bosch” television series, and numerous other film and TV scripts. Another topic that is bound to come up is the different challenges involved in writing crime fiction as opposed to true crime.
Legendary crime fiction author Lee Child praises Black Tunnel White Magic as a “great true-crime story and a great cop memoir – about how they do it and, above all, why they do it.”
In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. The facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck?
Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King.
Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in the launching of a soon-to-be famous author, Danville’s own Rick Jackson.
