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Torn right from the pages of today's newspapers (dwindling though they may be), THE SCARECROW centers on the plight of seasoned reporter Jack McEvoy, a Los Angeles Times newspaperman laid off due to budget cuts. While suffering the humiliation of having to train his rookie replacement, McEvoy (whom we first met in THE POET) decides to show the newspaper just what they will be losing by going for the big finale, a story that can make Pulitzer judges take notice even as he walks out the door. It begins, oddly enough, when a gang member's grandmother calls to inform McEvoy that her grandson did not commit the murder McEvoy wrote about in the paper. While he doesn't believe in the accused boy's innocence, McEvoy smells a good story (how a 16 year old LA boy's life led to murder). Once he starts investigating, the reporter discovers that the boy's claim of innocence in the murder has a ring of truth. The crucial evidence comes when McEvoy discovers a similar murder in Las Vegas some years back. Now the case has become not a single heinous murder, but a serial killer, and a wily one at that. In the midst of investigating the second murder and any linkage, things start happening to the reporter that he cannot explain. His credit cards don't work, his phone is dead, his email password denied. McEvoy decides it's time to seek a little help from a friend in the FBI, Rachel Walling. The closer the two get to the killer, the more apparent it is that the killer is also getting closer to them. He's using all the tricks of the electronic trade, and covering his tracks very well. Both the McEvoy-Walling team and the serial killer begin the final dance underestimating the other. The tension created by best-selling author Michael Connelly is palpable in the final lead up to the story's end. The combination of life inside a major newspaper and the electronic developments that have allowed a severe compromise of personal security are the perfect combination for this driving thriller. There is more action, more dead bodies, and more subtle commentary on the media in the book than presented here. It's a novel full of tight action, believable (sometimes vulnerable) characters, and well placed (but subtle) commentary about the state of our society, particularly the loss of important information-gathering that happens with the decline in newspapers' prominence, as well as individual vulnerability with the expansion of the Internet. This perfect storm of factors results in one great novel that will surely keep Connelly atop the best seller lists.
Reviewed by Christine Zibas, April 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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