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After meeting with Connelly and other producers, she said, “I knew I was in a room with people I wouldn’t mind spending years of my life with.”

Ballard first appeared in Connelly’s 2017 book “The Late Show,” and she has continued to solve crimes in five other novels.

Connelly has been a longtime fan of Q, whose more prominent roles include the only female member of the Impossible Mission Force headed by Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in “Mission Impossible III” and a dogged FBI agent in ABC’s “Designated Survivor.”

“She has a relentless aura about her,” said Connelly in a phone interview.

Were you familiar with Michael Connelly or his books before you became involved with the show?