Terrell Hansen, a heart transplant recipient from Orange County who inspired author Michael Connelly to write “Blood Work,” the best-selling mystery novel that became a Clint Eastwood movie, has died. He was 65.
Mr. Hansen, who was born in Chicago, died Jan. 2 of complications from a stroke he suffered in April, according to his wife, Linda.
A mechanical engineer who had to retire after he was diagnosed with a life-threatening heart disease in 1991 and placed on a waiting list for a heart transplant, Mr. Hansen had become a part-time book dealer specializing in modern first-edition mysteries.
Mr. Hansen had read a prepublication copy of Connelly’s “The Black Echo” and gave it high praise when he approached the author in 1992 with a stack of books to sign.
By the time Mr. Hansen received his heart transplant on Valentine’s Day in 1993, Connelly was such a close friend that he was one of the few visitors allowed into the recovery room.
Mr. Hansen, who was 51 when he received the transplant, never met the donor’s family but he knew that it came from an 18-year-old girl who had been killed in an auto accident.
“From a friend’s point of view, I felt badly for him,” Connelly said of his friend’s emotions over knowing someone had to die so that he could continue living. “From the standpoint of a writer, I saw the grist for a character. I thought if I could write a story about someone going through this, it could be a character that would live in people’s imaginations.”
Mr. Hansen agreed to give Connelly complete access to his life in researching the character for a novel.
“Blood Work,” his tale of a retired FBI agent who investigates the death of the young woman whose heart he received in transplant surgery, was published in 1998 and became Connelly’s first book to hit The New York Times best-seller list.
Connelly dedicated “Blood Work” to Mr. Hansen. “Blood Work” was turned into a 2002 movie of the same name, directed by Eastwood, who starred as the character based on Mr. Hansen.
