The Scarecrow
by Michael Connelly
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Book Reviews of The Scarecrow
Book Review: As I've Been Promising
Summary: 5 Stars
I am on record for heaping praise on Michael Connelly's standalone novels. They are not necessarily superior to the Bosch novels, but they are certainly the equal of those books. One of the very best is The Poet. Now, in The Scarecrow, Connelly reunites the central characters of The Poet: journalist Jack McEvoy and FBI Special Agent Rachel Walling.
At the outset of the story Jack has been given two weeks notice by the L.A. Times. Another victim of the internet, the paper is downsizing and Jack, with his high salary, is a tasty target for the corporate beancounters. He vows to go out on a high note by writing one last, big story. He investigates a murder case in which a drug dealer has been convicted of a brutal sex crime. His grandmother claims that he could not possibly have done it. As Jack examines the facts of that case he discovers a cognate case and realizes that the two individuals convicted must each be innocent. Ironically, while he is investigating the case the real perp is investigating him. It is doubly ironic, since the perp is an IT whiz, a master of the technology which is destroying the Times and Jack's journalism career. Reunited with Rachel, the couple discover a web of evil which they proceed to examine and, finally, dismantle. The serial killer (like Harris' Buffalo Bill) is a boy with mom problems, mom problems that have distorted his personality and set him off, somehow, on a life of rape, torture, murder, fetishism and computer fraud.
I am not spoiling the novel, for we learn much of this information early in the book. This is not a mystery, but a cat-and-mouse suspense thriller. Actually cat-and-mice, with Rachel in the picture. Actually cats-and-mice since the eponymous killer has a sidekick.
So why are we seeing The Scarecrow on the shelves of grocery stores and Wal-Mart as well as on the point-of-purchase rack in your local bookstore? Because Michael Connelly is a master story teller. Because here he has recreated two superb characters, whose personal interactions are as interesting as their investigations. Because we want to know how a major reporter investigates major crimes and Connelly's nonfiction book, Crime Beat, wasn't quite as satisfying as this fictional depiction of the process. Because Connelly plots like a master and knows just what information (and how much of it) to reveal at any moment. Because we're fascinated by contemporary technology and we want to know how it operates and how it displays a capacity for good as well as for evil. And, finally, because the book builds to a crescendo and disrupts all of our plans for the day as we sit locked in our chairs, reading the book to its conclusion.
This is Connelly at the top of his form. It's not Conrad and it's not Dostoyevsky (nor does it attempt to be), but it is the beach and airplane book of the summer and you'll love every word. Caution: it starts a little slowly as Connelly erects his superstructure. Be patient, the death race is coming.
Book Review: Not his worst but could have been MUCH better.
Summary: 3 Stars
Connelly has several series going at once, not only the long-running Harry Bosch stories but also those about investigative reporter Jack McAvoy, hardnosed FBI agent Rachel Waling, and several others. But in another sense, they're all one big series, since the characters appear in supporting roles in each other's stories and there are frequent references to past cases which were the focus of earlier novels. McAvoy is the narrator this time and he's just been given his pink slip after a dozen years on the police beat for the L.A. Times; he's being paid more than the new owner thinks is necessary. More than that, he's expected to train his inexperienced (and therefore cheaper) replacement, a modern "mobile journalist" capable of filing stories from her iPhone. Connelly himself, of course, is an ex-police reporter and he has a particular ax to grind here, but he makes a good case. Anyway: McAvoy is determined to go out with a bang, to give the paper a last story that will make them regret cutting him lose, and he settles on the arrest and apparent confession of a sixteen-year-old gangbanger in the horrific torture-murder of a nightclub dancer. He turns up an almost identical killing in Vegas a couple years before, for which a man is in prison -- which means, if the two murders really are the work of the same person, both these guys must be innocent. He chases the story, goes to Vegas, . . . and then, quite suddenly, his credit card doesn't work, his bank account is drained, and his email account at the Times is tapped into. Cyberstalking and identity theft are truly scary phenomena. Meanwhile, the reader knows from the beginning whodunit because the other POV is Wesley Carver, chief tech officer and threat engineer of a small company running a server farm in Arizona, a highly intelligent and deeply disturbed man who is shopping for his next victim. And Wesley has an apprentice almost as bent as himself. Rachel, whom McAvoy has never gotten over after their affair a dozen years earlier, gets involved and finds herself in the Bureau's crosshairs as a result. (Connelly must really hate bureaucracies.) The writing is not award-winning but it's a little better this time than in the author's last couple of outings. The narrative is more tightly edited and more involving as the reader explores the workings of the modern, Internet Age newspaper -- which is very different from the days of "All the President's Men." The action scenes are reasonably well done and the characters are generally multi-dimensional, though McAvoy and even Agent Walling seem too easily sidetracked by the Bad Guy. The ending, too, is rather flat and shrug-producing. And for what it's worth, I have to say that I don't believe any graduate of a university journalism program, even these days, could be ignorant of the meaning of "30" at the end of a story.Book Review: Lion, Tinman, Scarecrow...
Summary: 5 Stars
I finished reading "The Scarecrow" last night and I really enjoyed it!
It's been nearly a week since I started reading Michael Connelly's latest book. I had hoped to have it completed by Tuesday so that I could weigh in with one of the first reviews posted here. But as I read I decided there was no reason to hurry and every reason to savor a really well-written story. Now I'm ready.
If it was just that Connelly is a terrific guy (and he is) that would be enough. I had been reading his books for awhile before we met at the Santa Monica Super Crown when he was signing "Trunk Music." He stopped signing and we chatted. I was already hooked, but the personal contact just reinforced my high regard for him.
He is a masterful storyteller! As a high school English teacher, I am always prodding my students to read. Holding up books in class (Opah Winfrey style) so they can see what I'm reading. If a book doesn't grab their attention in the first few pages, they want to quickly give up on it. I always encourage them to stay the course. Sometimes you have to wait for the payoff. When they do, it's worth the wait. Years ago I read "Devices& Desires" by P. D. James. The story was plodding for me, but then around page 100 it happened! I often fall back on that story in class when my seniors want to give up on a book.
I found "The Scarecrow" slow moving at first. I had a difficult time with the first and third person perspectives (something I discourage in my students' writing). Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying the read but I found myself waiting. And then, sure enough, after about 100 pages it happened. And once again I was glad I stayed with it. I think that moment happens at different times for different readers, but you have to hang in there.
In those first 99 pages Connelly builds the foundation that the rest of his story rests securely on. There's a real sense of foreboding in the pages of this book. We know things that Jack McEvoy doesn't know and that dramatic irony is difficult to bear in places. We know Wesley Carver is out there, but he remains the "unsub" for a very long time. The Scarecrow remains on the periphery for a large portion of book, but his presence is felt by everyone whose lives he affects.
I don't have to reveal anything that the previous reviewers haven't already. I will simply say I am happy there are writers out there like P. D. James and Micheal Connelly out there so that teachers like me can say: Listen you guys, if I can do this when I read, you should be able to do it too. Don't put this book down! I look forward to complimenting Michael again when I see him next month at The Poisoned Pen.
Book Review: He's simply the best.
Summary: 4 Stars
Jack McEvoy is given his pink slip from "The Los Angeles Times."
However, he's given 14 days to train his successor, Angela Cook.
He's wondering what to do when he gets a call from Wanda Sessums. She tells him that the paper got it wrong. Her nephew never admitted to murder. Please check it and correct the mistake.
Jack sees the chance to write one more story and maybe save his job, or maybe teach the paper that they were letting the wrong man go. He even thought it might be the time to write the novel he always wanted to do.
He does check things out and it turns out that the nephew only admitted to stealing the victim's car. He saw the pocketbook on the front seat, stole the care and later looked in the trunk. That's when he saw the dead body of stripper, Denise Babbit.
Angela does some research and finds another woman died in the same way, she was also found in the trunk of her car with marks on her similiar to Denise's.
The reader learns about a place called the Farm and a man named Carver. He is one of the killers. He has a web site for trunk murder search and when Angela found about the other murder, Carver found out about Angela. He uses his spyware and learns that Jack is coming to Vegas to interview the man convicted of killing the first victim. Carver decides to stop him. He calls Jack's credit card companies and tells them that the cards have been stolen so they put a stop on them, calls the prison and tells them the man Jack is coming to see has a life threat so they put him in protective lock up and erases Jack's emails to his boss.
With Jack isolated and not knowing what's going on, he calls the one person he can trust, Rachel Walling, an FBI agent he had an affair with when working on the Poet case.
Rachel hears what's happened and feels Jack is being set-up. She flies to Vegas and waits for him in his room. Unknowingly she ruins Carver's plan to have his accomplice kill Jack.
Jack and Rachel return to Jack's home. They are intimate and then find Angela Cook's body under Jack's bed. With this, Rachel brings in the investigators from the FBI. They are able to trace where the emails came from and begin their case against Carver.
As usual, for Connelly, the suspense is excellent. The plot was somewhat confusing with two killers and so much technical information but the characters were well developed. Jack shows his humane side in not accepting the job at the paper if it will cost someone else their position. He is also brave and heroic. Rachel is a character who the reader will enjoy. She reminds me of Jodi Foster in "The Silence of the Lambs."
Book Review: The Internet, a tool for deviants? (3.7*s)
Summary: 4 Stars
Connelly, years ago, established the gritty Harry Bosch of the LAPD as one of the best characters in all of crime fiction; really, few others measure up. However, Jack McEvoy, a reporter for the LA Times on the cop beat, is not without his credentials in the world of dealing with lowlifes, as he was instrumental in the demise of a particularly ingenious criminal, the Poet, some ten years earlier. Nonetheless, given the rapid decline of the print media, his high profile and corresponding high salary have put him on the RIF - Reduction in Force - list; the Times has given him two weeks notice. And that only so he can train his replacement, Angela Cook.
An unexpected phone call from the mother, or is that grandmother, of a sixteen-year-old gang member, who had the misfortune of stealing a car with a dead woman in the trunk, declaring the boy's innocence, gives McEvoy the thought to write one last great article, though rather vaguely conceived. Mostly through Cook's initiative, the details of the death scene are found to be eerily similar to a female's death in Las Vegas. The story has gotten bigger; it appears two innocents are in prison. Jack soon is on his way to visit the second person in a Nevada prison and enlists the unofficial support of LA FBI agent Rachael Walling, who was a part of the Poet case and, more significantly, had an intimate relationship with McEvoy. Little does he know what he will come to owe her.
It quickly becomes evident to Walling and McEvoy that they are dealing with a truly sinister and highly intelligent serial killer(s). Jack finds that his Internet dealings have been penetrated: his e-mails deleted or constructed and falsely sent, bank and credit card accounts closed, phone contracts canceled, etc. Slowly, they dig deeper; they retrace their steps, especially Internet sites visited; and they see common connections to a data security firm. But can they hope to contend with a foe that seems to know their every move?
This is not one of Connelly's more gripping tales. The suspense factor is down considerably as the perpetrator is identified on page one. The plot also revolves around some rather fortuitous interpretations of data. The bad guy(s) is/are a bit too crafty, yet remain largely a mystery. The interaction of Walling and McEvoy is overly strained, even taking into account the entire situation. The man vs. organization themes that are such a part of Bosch's dealings with the LAPD barely get off the ground despite McEvoy's sacking and Walling's temporary firing for freelancing. Connelly fans will undoubtedly enjoy this easy-reading book even though it lacks the intensity of some earlier efforts.