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| The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly |
| (Little, Brown, $27.99, V) ISBN 978-0-316-16630-0 |
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| When veteran "cop shop" reporter Jack McEvoy receives his RIF (Reduction in Force) notice from the Los Angeles Times, he is given the rather humiliating option of staying on for two weeks to train his young replacement Angela Cook. During that time, Jack receives a call from a woman who states her son is not guilty of the murder charge to which he allegedly confessed and which was reported by Jack. Curious, Jack goes to her home in South LA to discuss the case and later meets with the court appointed public defender who provides Jack with a flash drive which reveals that while Alonzo confesses to have stolen the car, he did not admit to the murder of the woman found in the trunk. Angela upstages Jack and writes the story first. As part of her research, she surfs the internet for similar cases and discovers a husband convicted of murdering his wife and placing her in the trunk of his car in exactly the same fashion. Could this be a serial killer? Jack travels to Las Vegas to meet with this man's attorney only to discover that his credit cards are cancelled, his bank account is empty and his cell phone is disconnected. Jack drives to the middle of nowhere Nevada to meet with the prisoner but is advised that he will need to wait till the following day. Jack had called Special Agent Rachel Walling for help but after refusing him initially, she appears in his hotel room in Nevada to advise that someone is tracking Jack on the Internet. Indeed, Wesley Carver, aka "The Scarecrow" who is the chief technology officer at The Farm which is a large data storage service, is the brilliant but deranged mastermind behind these bizarre cases and although the serial killer is revealed early on, this does not lessen the reader's interest. The Scarecrow could be called the sequel to The Poet which brings back Jack and Rachel some thirteen years later. Now the newspaper business is struggling and in fact the Rocky Mountain News where Jack previously worked has closed down in real life. Reality suggests that people now turn to the internet more and more for news and The Scarecrow shows us the dark side of technology with cyber villain Wesley Carver. Well-written, current and a fitting homage to the newspaper business, The Scarecrow is a must read not only for Connelly fans, but for any fan of crime fiction. |
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