Does familiarity breed complacency?

Michael Connolly has been one of my favourite authors ever since I read his first Harry Bosch novel in 1992. His Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer series didn’t disappoint either, confirming Connelly as a first class crime writer. I followed the fortunes of both characters down the years, adding the Renée Ballard stories to the mix as Bosch grew older in real time.
It was only when my eyesight deteriorated and I was constrained largely o audiobooks that I realised how much Connelly’s writing had changed over the tears. I recently finished listening to The Waiting (a Bosch and Ballard combo) which left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied. There were multiple strands running through the book which didn’t seem to have any relevance to one another, the lead protagonists made some very dubious decisions nd there were one or two instances of deus ex machina which made me stretch my eyes a little. I even saw a few reviews that suggested Connelly had not written the book. Hmm.
To satisfy my own misgivings, I downloaded The Black Echo, which is now over thirty years old. The difference in the two books was startling. In The Black Echo, Connelly explored Bosch’s time during the Vietnam war when he operated as a ‘tunnel rat’. a fully fleshed out series of episodes that served to build a complete understanding of why Bosch became the person he is when we first meet him. The Vietnam sections were cleverly tied in to bank robbers tunnelling underneath the streets of Hollywood to rob banks in the present day. There were multiple ties between the two timeline which were woven in so subtly that there was never a moment of, ‘Well, I saw that coming ‘. The end, when it came, was both a shock and expertly teased out. I was blown away by the reading experience.
When I finally took my earphones out, like all good books, the story stayed with me as I mulled over different scenarios, realising how perfectly Connelly had sown seeds along the way which made perfect sense in hindsight.
I don’t know at what point over the years Connelly’s writing changed, but there’s no denying that the raw energy and the intricate plotting of The Black Echo is a far cry the more formulaic, jumbled disappointment that is The Waiting. It left me wondering if, perhaps, there can be too much of a good thing, if an author spends so many years with a character that there just isn’t anything new to say about him or they just get tired of one another.
I will still read everything Conelly writes and, with a completely new character in a different setting making an appearance later this year, I’m pinning my hopes on finding a fresher, rejuvenated voice reminiscent of his earlier writing.