by Michael Connelly
Two sadistic serial killers stalk the landscape in this new thriller . Both are psychopathic geeks who sniff out their "leggy" victims on the Internet. Then there's the Internet itself, making a mockery of the right to privacy and gradually strangling the life out of the nation's newspapers.
Jack McEvoy, hero of the tale, is a police reporter for The Los Angeles Times. The same job, incidentally, Connelly held before quitting to write novels full time.
The book opens with Jack being given two weeks' notice, part of the withering paper's latest "force reduction." But if he can track down the psychopath, maybe he can leave in a blaze of glory.
We've met Jack before, incidentally, when he was a Denver reporter on the trail of a different serial killer in The Poet (1996). That villain murdered Jacks brother and Jack was relentless in the pursuit. Back then, he was working for The Rocky Mountain News, a paper that, in both the novel and in fact, went under earlier this year.
Joining Jack in Los Angeles is another familiar face, FBI agent Rachel Walling, who played a key role in The Poet and returned as our old friend Harry Bosch's love interest in The Narrows (2004).
Together, Jack and Rachel are a formidable team again; but the psychopath, a computer expert and his apostle, are worthy adversaries. Hacking into the newspaper's computer system, the Scarecrow watches Jack's every move. And when Jack gets too close, the hacker isolates and hobbles him by cancelling his credit cards, emptying his bank account and shutting off his cellphone service.
It's not lost on Jack that the killer is using the same tools that are destroying the business he loves. It's not lost on the reader that if newspapers disappear, so may investigative reporters like Jack.
The Scarecrow is a dire warning about the dangers of electronic snooping and a reminder of what we will lose if newspapers continue to fail. This text is a thriller – cleverly plotted, fast-paced and crisply written.
A feather in Connelly's writer's cap. As Connelly puts it, he set out to write "a thriller first and a torch song for the newspaper business second." The book works well on both levels although the ending is a bit weak in my humble opinion. Still..... a fantastic read.
Again I add, if Connelly writes it, I will read it. LOL
Connelly reading "The Scarecrow" http://tinyurl.com/mlftsu
Reviewed by Nan Sevic
Jack McEvoy, hero of the tale, is a police reporter for The Los Angeles Times. The same job, incidentally, Connelly held before quitting to write novels full time.
The book opens with Jack being given two weeks' notice, part of the withering paper's latest "force reduction." But if he can track down the psychopath, maybe he can leave in a blaze of glory.
We've met Jack before, incidentally, when he was a Denver reporter on the trail of a different serial killer in The Poet (1996). That villain murdered Jacks brother and Jack was relentless in the pursuit. Back then, he was working for The Rocky Mountain News, a paper that, in both the novel and in fact, went under earlier this year.
Joining Jack in Los Angeles is another familiar face, FBI agent Rachel Walling, who played a key role in The Poet and returned as our old friend Harry Bosch's love interest in The Narrows (2004).
Together, Jack and Rachel are a formidable team again; but the psychopath, a computer expert and his apostle, are worthy adversaries. Hacking into the newspaper's computer system, the Scarecrow watches Jack's every move. And when Jack gets too close, the hacker isolates and hobbles him by cancelling his credit cards, emptying his bank account and shutting off his cellphone service.
It's not lost on Jack that the killer is using the same tools that are destroying the business he loves. It's not lost on the reader that if newspapers disappear, so may investigative reporters like Jack.
The Scarecrow is a dire warning about the dangers of electronic snooping and a reminder of what we will lose if newspapers continue to fail. This text is a thriller – cleverly plotted, fast-paced and crisply written.
A feather in Connelly's writer's cap. As Connelly puts it, he set out to write "a thriller first and a torch song for the newspaper business second." The book works well on both levels although the ending is a bit weak in my humble opinion. Still..... a fantastic read.
Again I add, if Connelly writes it, I will read it. LOL
Connelly reading "The Scarecrow" http://tinyurl.com/mlftsu
Reviewed by Nan Sevic
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