The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly
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Book Reviews of The Scarecrow
Book Review: Doing Everything Right
Summary: 5 Stars
THE SETUP
Jack McEvoy, a newspaper crime writer has just been fired, but has two weeks to train his replacement. He decides on a parting "screw-you" in the form of an article that the newspaper will be compelled to submit for a Pulitzer Prize. The story will be about a black teenager accused of murder. Jack does not believe the young man to be innocent--rather the story will be about how he got into the situation. Of course, the young man is innocent, and Jack is forced into a serious effort to clear him---or at least to find the real serial killer for the sake of authoring a sensational story. That's the setup.
COMMENTS
If I were teaching a course in popular fiction writing, "The Scarecrow" would be a case study in how to do it right. Almost as important as getting everything right, "The Scarecrow"t is free of the sloppy writing and gaffs that plague most popular novels in the general action/intrigue/suspense genre.
There is NO annoying teaser. The purpose of this loathsome device (which has become "standard" in most popular novels) is to snag potential purchasers, who are skimming first chapters in bookstores, with up-front action. Often such teasers have virtually nothing to do with the story. More typically, they only become comprehensible to the reader near the end of the novel, by which time the details have been forgotten. THANK YOU Michael Connelly
There is no filler to pad the page count. The main characters are few and easily identifiable. Although the plot has turns and twists, it is easy to follow. The two principal "good guy" characters are appropriately developed for the genre and easy to relate to and root for. The sex scenes are few and tasteful.
I disagree with some other reviewers. I found nothing gruesome whatsoever in the novel.
True, "The Scarecrow" has a fairly sedate pace--it is NOT one of those novels which grabs you by the throat and won't let go until you've read the last page. However, I appreciate a novel I can enjoy without risking a cardiac event.
THE VERDICT
"The Scarecrow" is superbly written, captivating and entertaining.
Book Review: (4.5 stars) "I had one last deadline and one last murder story to write."
Summary: 5 Stars
The face of crime has changed. Mind-numbing murders still occur, random violence, serial killers, perverted thrill seekers. But with advanced technology, law enforcement faces a more sophisticated field of criminal enterprise, these days tracking suspects "through the labyrinthine portals of the digital world". Author Michael Connelly has kept up with the pace of technological investigation and in this novel he delivers an action-packed, up-to-date thriller that runs the gamut from serial perversions to a digital landscape where a twisted mind preys on the innocent postings of a naïve public. Meanwhile, print journalism continues its slow dance with irrelevance, as crime reporter Jack McEvoy gets pink-slipped by the latest rash of downsizing at the LA Times.
To add insult to injury, Jack is expected to train his replacement, an eager, tech-savvy, young reporter, Angela Cook. As Jack Tackles his last story, the trunk murder of an exotic dancer by a sixteen-year-old gang-banger, Angela searches the internet for related crimes. Random events escalate as McEvoy begins to suspect the murder might not be as simple as first appears and he is suddenly vulnerable to a growing threat. Leaving Angela in the dust, Jack heads for Las Vegas, in a nail-biting cat and mouse chase where the reporter's every move is followed by a killer always a few steps ahead of law enforcement and Jack's inventive approach to reporting.
Connelly is an innovative writer who uses technology to crank up the excitement in a novel riddled with surprises and the outrageous mayhem of a serial killer adept at covering his digital tracks while mining pertinent information on his prey, especially Jack. The story is infused with the harsh reality of today's newspapers, these bastions of the truth, including the LA Times, gradually dismantled to reflect the demands of a changing world. McEvoy may be a dinosaur, but he's not through. The one clear voice in a mixed field of corporate cutbacks, the bureaucratic roadblocks of the FBI and the evil machinations of a monster, Jack stubbornly rides the wave of his last big story at the LA Times. Luan Gaines/2009.
Book Review: Outstanding
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the things I've always liked about Connelly's books is that his characters seem so realistic, reacting to real-life situations the way we'd expect real-life people to act. "Scarecrow" has that same, real-life feel.
Jack McEvoy is a former ace-reporter, whose recent career has not lived up to his earlier achievements; and he works for the L.A. Times, a newspaper whose former glory is fading too, just like Jack's. Connelly, a former newsman himself, gives a vivid description of the devastating impact that competition from internet and cable news providers has had on print media. The impact on the L.A. Times was so great that they imposed a reduction-in-force, and Jack is the 99th person to be laid off. Even worse, Jack has to train his own replacement. Connelly does an outstanding job describing Jack's inner turmoil as he tries to deal with his humiliating circumstances.
Jack has two weeks to train his replacement, and he resolves to use that time to write one last story, a story that will make such a splash that the paper will have no choice but to keep him on. Jack's last-chance story involves a black teenager accused of brutally raping and killing a young white stripper. Jack thinks he can weasel his way into the boy's confidence and get enough material for a Pulitzer-level, "mind of a young black killer" story, but there are three small problems.
First, Jack's ambitious, young replacement may try to steal the story from him.
Second, Jack's editor may have the hots for the replacement, who happens to be an extremely attractive young woman.
Third, the young black boy sitting in jail may not actually have killed that stripper after all.
And that's when the story really gets interesting.
Jack faces numerous challenges in his search for the truth, his quest for a Pulitzer Prize, and his fight for his job; and the little details that Connelly throws in make each page seem so true-to-life that you feel like you're actually watching it happen yourself.
This is a really good story told by a real master.
Book Review: One of Connelly's best
Summary: 5 Stars
A remarkable trait of Connelly's skill as a writer is that he doesn't have to rely on tricks or past success. He is primarily known as the author of the Harry Bosch series, but his greatest books have been, in this reviewer's opinion, the non-Bosch books. This is not to denigrate the Bosch books by any means, as they are all excellent, but merely to point out that Connelly isn't a formula writer, he doesn't stick to the familiar, and he's not afraid to take chances.
Beginning with The Poet, the novel that introduced Scarecrow's own Jack McEvoy and Rachel Walling, Connelly began to step away from Bosch on occasion. That book was not only one of Connelly's best, but one of the scariest books I've ever read. Scarecrow may not top it, but it comes close to matching it. With the title character, we are given a villain equal to anything Connelly has conceived before, a criminal mastermind of the most striking manner. Particularly remarkable is that you never see him commit any killings. His manipulation of everyone involved, his extraordinary capacity for self-preservation, is mind-numbing. The idea of someone like The Scarecrow actually being out there in the world is enough to keep me up at night.
As a page turner the book succeeds remarkably. This may be the fastest I've read any Connelly book, finishing it in two days. I was worried that Connelly may have rushed this, coming out so soon after The Brass Verdict, but those fears proved unfounded. I'm not sure Connelly would know how to write a bad book.
Whatever you do, don't start this before you go to bed. Either you'll have trouble putting down the book to go to bed, or you'll have trouble sleeping cause it's just too disturbing. You may just have to stay up to find out how it ends.
Book Review: Walling and McEvoy at it again
Summary: 5 Stars
Jack McEvoy, LA Times crime beat reporter/author, and Rachel Walling, famed FBI agent, team up to take down a serial killer in Michael Connelly's latest thriller, The Scarecrow. McEvoy (familiar to regular readers) is back in his usual form...a reporter - from the "good ole days" where hard-copy newspapers were preferred to web-delivered content - who stops at nothing to get his story. Walling also returns to us as the no-nonsense, intuitive profiler.
In The Scarecrow, Connelly yet again delivers a clever and engaging storyline, complete with the usual geographical references and hotel room love scenes familiar to his readers. The writing style is all Connelly, however the presentation of the plot is different from his past work. The killer's moves are known to the reader well before they are known to the main characters of McEvoy and Walling so the suspense is found in the hows and whys and not so much in the whats. This makes for a slightly less climactic storyline in some ways, but surprisingly more interesting in that the reader is constantly a step ahead of McEvoy & Walling (and therefore eager to put the pieces of the puzzle together). It was a nice change of pace from what Connelly's readers have come to expect (not that this expectation is a bad thing in and of itself) and made for a fascinating read.
Connelly's characters are well-developed, as always, as are the intricate details that are spun together to form the storyline.
My only complaint (aside from a glaring editing mistake found near the end of the book) was that the end was too abrupt...not fleshed out enough, perhaps. Even though this is surely purposeful and makes perfect sense given the sequence of events that lead up to the resolution, as a reader, I was left wanting a bit more. For that, I would give The Scarecrow 4.5 stars if possible, but felt it was more deserving of a five-star rating than four.