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|  | Author: Michael Connelly
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
List Price: $27.99
Buy Used: $0.50
as of 3/14/2010 04:42 CDT details
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Seller: gwspokanebooks
Rating:  235 reviews
Sales Rank: 16824
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.5
ISBN: 0316166308
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780316166300
ASIN: 0316166308
Publication Date: May 26, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Edges of book are slightly dirty; A readable copy. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (the dust cover may be missing). Pages can include considerable notes--in pen or highlighter--but the notes cannot obscure the text. This item was received as a donation.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 196-200 of 235
 As I've Been Promising June 7, 2009
Richard B. Schwartz (Columbia, Missouri USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
Not Quite Top Shelf Connelly June 7, 2009
John F. Rooney
"The Scarecrow," Michael Connelly's twentieth crime novel is far from his best, and it has the feel of having been dashed off. Another one, "Nine Dragons," a Harry Bosch is due out in October of this year. Slow down, Michael, and put a little more care into them. Connelly is probably America's finest crime novelist, and it seems impossible for him to turn out a real stinker. It put me off for the first eighty pages or so and then got rolling. His villains in this one seem inauthentic and phony to me.
Jack McEvoy, writer for the L.A. Times and Rachel Walling of the FBI are together again. Remember them from "The Poet"? This book, mostly narrated by Jack, has a little too much stuff about Jack as a reporter and the way the print medium is going down the tubes in 2009. He's been canned by the paper, and has to retrain a young woman as his replacement.
The book has a lot of computer jargon and computer-savvy material. It's fascinating to watch how The Scarecrow, Carver, a computer wizard and bad guy working at "The Farm", is able to break into websites and e-mail to track people down and keep tabs on investigations. The social networking sites and personal blogs prove full of dangerous information. And talk about identity theft! Some of the things The Scarecrow does just don't ring true.
One of the villains makes contact with McEvoy, a device we've seen before. Jack wants to get embedded in the FBI investigation, but they're not having any of that nonsense which of course isolates him and forces him to go it alone with Rachel's assistance.
Connelly uses the computer wizardry, technical palaver, to move his plot along. Complex plots have always been his strong suit producing suspense and surprises. Sometimes his plots are like roller coasters careening out of control. He's a very street-smart writer.
Loose ends are a little too neatly tied up at the end of the book as if this package had to get out for overnight delivery.
Suspense at it's best June 7, 2009
Brian Sullivan
It's hard to write a review for a book like this because you don't want to give anything away to ruin the suspense. Like many of Connely's books, this one is full of surprises, vivid writing, and intrigue. The gruesomeness of this book is fierce, but it's done in a way that won't turn your stomache. Jack McEvoy is one of my favorite characters of all time and it is good to see him in action again.
A Story of People and Newpapers Dying. June 7, 2009
Gerald Swimmer (Rye, New York United States)
20 out of 30 found this review helpful
The economic case for the newspaper business has been much discussed. Michael Connelly gives a great insight into the business and puts a human face on its death. That part of the story is realistic and interesting. I can not help but to feel sorry for the what appears to be the death of newspapers.
Juxtaposed is an internet killer. Michael shows great knowledge of the internet and that part is interesting. The return of Jack McEvoy and Rachel gives us interesting protagonists to find the bad guy.
Michael Connelly is the best mystery writer working today in my view. Lee Childs is a close second. Having said that I wonder why he decided to reveal the bad guy so early in the book. I think it took away from the excitement and that is why I gave the book 4 stars.
I remember a very similar killer from someone's mystery. Does anyone remember a similar villain.
This isn't Kansas June 6, 2009
G. Ware Cornell Jr. (Weston FL)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
The newspaper business has been affected more than any other by the new digital age. Newspaper circulation, advertising inches, and editorial staffing are all down. Great newspapers like the Los Angeles Times go through rounds of cuts as their corporate owners struggle to survive.
This new information infrastructure does not content itself to wrecking great metropolitan newspapers, it invades the core of other professions, law and finance in particular, by becoming the watchdog for their great secrets.
Who watches the watchers?
Jack McEvoy, underachieving reporter for the L.A. Times is caught in the digital crunch. Assigned to train his pretty young replacement, McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, to find the big story and write it before his tenure is his profession comes to an end. He has only two weeks, and yet opportunity has knocked. McEvoy begins to investigate the homicide of a leggy exotic dancer and the young gang-banger charged in her gruesome death.
Soon McEvoy, who we last saw in Michael Connelly's The Poet is in big trouble and he turns to his long lost love FBI agent Rachel Walling to pull his chesnuts from the fire. But every Michael Connelly novel offers deeply complex plots in which the obvious is only a teaser of what lies within.
This novel, perhaps Michael Connelly's best work ever, will not disappoint. From the sentimental goodbye to print journalism to digital terrorism at its apex Connelly commands our attention and respect as America's greatest mystery writer.
Showing reviews 196-200 of 235
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