The Scarecrow
by Michael Connelly
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Book Reviews of The Scarecrow
Book Review: This Scarecrow Doesn't Dance
Summary: 5 Stars
This is Michael Connelly at his best. It's a fascinating read, like so many of his earlier works. I was a bit disappointed with two recent books, The Brass Verdict and The Overlook, but not with The Scarecrow.
The story is compellingly told, mostly from the perspective of the central character. It seems to me that Connelly is at his best when writing about a strong, ethical character, like Detective Harry Bosch, star of several Connelly works. The Scarecrow features such a strong person, Jack McEvoy, who battles the forces of evil.
McEvoy is a well-respected veteran L.A. Times crime reporter who gets fired due to the deep budget cuts that reflect the decline of printed media in the face of Internet competition. (People want their news NOW.) Instead of a swift boot out the door, McEvoy gets two week's notice if he agrees to train his replacement. This sort of thing is as current as today's headlines: a lot of good people with years of experience are getting axed and replaced by younger workers with small salaries.
McEvoy is determined to use those two weeks to build a big story that will help him create a best seller. Several years before his dismissal, McEvoy wrote a best seller about a sensational murder case that he investigated. This is where an earlier Connelly book, The Poet, intersects with The Scarecrow. Connelly also includes FBI Agent Rachel Walling, who has appeared before.
McEvoy wants another big bucks success as a way of thumbing his nose at the Times. So, in The Scarecrow he works a story about two brutal murders in which the victims' bodies were stuffed in car trunks. The trail leads to a "genius" psycho who uses the Internet for no good at all. And it turns out that the psycho's job gives him access to an overwhelming arsenal of high-tech devices.
A typical Connelly tactic is to "tutor" the reader as the plot unfolds. In The Brass Verdict it was jury selection and the conduct of a trial. In The Scarecrow there are many details about computer technology and the Internet. The Internet can be a dark alley used for identity theft, character assassination, and extortion. Clearly, Connelly is one of those (most likely, well past forty) who feel somewhat overwhelmed by the new technology. These are people who grew up before there was a P.C. on every desk and a cell phone in every pocket/purse.
There's plenty of suspense in The Scarecrow. Connelly skillfully reveals things to the reader without telling McEvoy and Walling. The reader then "helplessly" watches McEvoy and Walling stumble about as disaster lurks.
The Scarecrow gets an easy five.
Book Review: Great start - but a bit of a let down near the end.
Summary: 4 Stars
Michael Connelly is easily one of the best crime fiction authors working today and The Scarecrow is a solid read, although I have to admit that after a great start the ending is a bit of let down. It isn't that the ending is bad (it isn't) - it's just that it follows a standard formula and was just too 'ordinary'.
The first half of The Scarecrow is exceptionally good. Connelly gives readers an insider's look at the inner workings of the newspaper business and the devastating effect that the internet and 24 hour cable news is having on it. I appreciated that our hero, reporter Jack McEvoy, starts chasing a story for reasons that are not entirely noble. When the grandmother of a gang member charged with murder insists her grandson is innocent, Jack follows up, not intending to prove the boy innocent, but rather to gain access to the family so he can profile the mind of a young killer. Of course, he does find evidence that leads the story in a different direction.
The greatest strength of Connelly's fiction is how thorough he is as a writer. For example: the killer is planning to frame someone (I don't want to give too much away) and Connelly has him address any holes in his plan, like the transportation of a firearm. Lesser authors would simply ignore the problem(s) and assume that readers wouldn't notice or would be willing to overlook the inconsistancies. Connelly though has his killer find a solution so that his plan is as realistic as possible. I appeciate that. I also appreciate that McEvoy and his partner FBI agent Rachel Walling don't just stumble around - they actually investigate, detect, and solve things. The criminals are intelligent too, which makes for a refreshingly smart read.
Unfortunately, after an exceptional start, it's as if Connelly switches onto autopilot for the second half of the novel and follows the Serial Killer Novel Playbook to the letter. Connelly uses one of the standard ploys of crime fiction: notably the `hero realizes the truth when he sees, hears, or says something unrelated to the crime that triggers a sudden epiphany, allowing him to save the day at the last possible moment." The other issue that I had with the final part of the novel is the behavior of the killer when he realizes that Jack and Rachel are onto him. He's been so cool and calculating throughout the novel but then over-reacts faced with Jack's flimsy `evidence'.
Is The Scarecrow worth reading? Absolutely. True, the ending was a bit of a let down after such a great start, but at least there was a great start and it wasn't that big of a let down. 3 ¾ stars.
Book Review: More Jack Please!
Summary: 5 Stars
Jack McEvoy made headlines when he helped track down a deadly serial killer early in his career. These days he is being forced out of the Los Angeles Times because of budget cuts. It seems the world has forgotten about the hero reporter who avenged his brother's death. Just as Jack is ready to throw in the towel, he catches wind of a story that might just allow him to go out with a bang. As Jack digs deeper he soon discovers that the newspaper may be done with him, but a deadly new killer is certainly not.
We first met Jack McEvoy in Michael Connelly's highly acclaimed novel, The Poet. Many consider that first introduction of the character to be Connelly's finest work, surpassing even the dearly loved Harry Bosch novels. Thankfully, Connelly decided to prove to us all that Jack McEvoy is anything but a one hit wonder.
The Scarecrow is the perfect blend of vintage Connelly with a welcome dose of tech savvy thriller. While The Poet dealt much more with the daily life of a beat reporter, this time around we get more action layered with the perfect amount of detail. One of Connelly's trademarks is his thoroughness, giving the audience an all access pass into the lives of his characters. While that element is still strong throughout here, it almost feels like Connelly holds back just enough to let the characters tell the story. The Scarecrow has a much tighter, fast paced feel that makes for an even better read than The Poet.
Rachel Walling is of course back and Connelly does a masterful job of portraying the ache of old flames and the hope of what might be. Jack and Rachel have both matured in different ways, yet they can't deny the spark that never died. Their relationship feels like a natural overflow of the story and even helps carry the tension along as the plot unfolds.
The Scarecrow himself is a deeply disturbing villain whose weapon is the one thing that makes us all vulnerable: technology. This is a whole new frightening breed of serial killer, and Connelly wondrously brings this character to life through some riveting third person narrative.
What sets The Scarecrow apart from the rest is the character of Jack McEvoy. Michael Connelly nails every aspect of this veteran reporter with an unyielding sense of justice. The use of the first person is second to none here and the switching from first to third person throughout works as a clever storytelling device.
Millions of Michael Connelly fans wait with bated breath for the next Harry Bosch novel, and rightly so. I, however, can't help but hope that we haven't seen the last of Jack McEvoy.
Book Review: Journalist sleuth makes timely reappearance
Summary: 5 Stars
With the demise of newspapers looming, bestselling author and former L.A. Times crime reporter Connelly's latest, set in an LA Times struggling to stay afloat, couldn't be more timely.
Connelly fans will remember rumpled, stalwart newsman Jack McEvoy from "The Poet," and will also be pleased to discover sparks once again flying between McEvoy and FBI agent Rachel Walling (who has made recent appearances in Connelly's Harry Bosch series). A very scary internet-savvy serial killer and Connelly's usual breakneck pacing complete the mix for this absorbing thriller.
After a brief introduction to the clever killer in his day job as a computer security genius, gleefully laying waste to the life of a would-be hacker, Connelly takes us into the newsroom of the L.A.Times where veteran reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner McEvoy has just been terminated - given two weeks notice in order to train his younger, less expensive replacement, Angela Cook.
McEvoy accepts the terms, but has no intention of going gently. He decides to write "a story that would make them remember me after I'm gone," another Pulitzer, a story that would show them they'd fired the wrong man. He focuses on a teenage drug dealer from the projects who's just been arrested for the murder of a young white woman, a junkie, stuffed into the trunk of her own car.
But what starts off as a dark profile morphs into something bigger when it begins to appear the young drug dealer might have been framed - by a clever, sadistic serial killer.
Switching viewpoints between the killer and McEvoy in a high-stakes dance of smarts and ruthlessness, Connelly keeps the suspense at a high pitch, ratcheting up the pace with law-enforcement mistakes, rule breaking, ego clashes, nick-of-time saves and crackling electricity between McEvoy and Walling.
But what adds real depth to this fast-paced read is the portrayal of the newsroom in all its old dinosaur warts, traditions, and gritty venerability. Connelly plumbs his journalistic background for more than atmosphere, however, exploring the meeting of internet and paper, and the ways they enhance one another. The ease and speed of internet research, for instance, combined with the structure and discipline of traditional journalism creates a powerful investigative machine, paradoxically undermined by its own economic mechanism.
Stalking a killer, Connelly gives us a glimpse of a future without newspapers and it's a scary sight. This is one of his best.
Book Review: First Rate Thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
Michael Connelly is at the top of his game in this taut thriller that pits Jack McEvoy, a veteran newspaper reporter, and Rachel Walling, an FBI agent, against a psychopath known as the Scarecrow who has a unique perversion as to how he tortures and kills his female victims. In the process McEvoy and Walling, who have not seen each other in years, rekindle an old romance.
McEvoy receives a pink slip as part of a reduction in force for the newspaper that he works for, and determines to write one last story in his final two weeks that will make the newspaper sorry that they let him go. He plans to get inside the head of a teenage gangbanger who has been arrested for the gruesome murder of a stripper, only to discover that the gangbanger is innocent, as is a man in another state who was convicted of killing his ex wife, who was murdered in the same manner as the stripper. Although he has not seen Walling in years, McEvoy calls her for help, and together they track down the Scarecrow in a fast paced novel that is brimming with action. Along the way Connelly provides interesting insights into how a newspaper is run, as well as a dark side of data security whereby the persons who guard private data can use that very same data to harm the people who own it.
The term Scarecrow refers to the technology engineer whose job it is to stop cyber hackers from invading data that is stored on the Farm, which is a cluster of servers. Connelly shows the irony of entrusting data for safekeeping based on a company's sophisticated technological safeguards, all of which become worthless if a trusted data company employee with access to that data is a psychopath. The reader soon discovers the many ways in which private data can be abused as McEvoy finds his cell phone disconnected, his credit cards cancelled, a private conversation with Walling being monitored on the internet, etc. in an effort by the Scarecrow to stop him.
I disagree with the reviews that say Jack McEvoy is not as interesting as Connelly's other protagonist, detective Harry Bosch, and that this novel is not as entertaining as a Bosch novel. The action is nonstop, and even though the Scarecrow's identity is revealed right at the beginning, a fascinating game of cat and mouse takes place as McEvoy and Walling put together the pieces to finally identify and capture the Scarecrow. This novel is another winner by Michael Connelly.