Apart from his ongoing Harry Bosch series, Connelly writes tremendous standalones, and this year’s The Scarecrow features Jack McEvoy who last showed up in Connelly’s breakthrough novel The Poet, battling the serial killer who gave the novel its name. Mike Connelly is no stranger to Shots Ezine having talked to us in the past about City of Bones in 2002, The Narrows in 2004 and The Overlook in 2007. We’d all been energised by the return of journalist Jack McEvoy in Connelly’s terrifying The Scarecrow and wanted to ask him a few questions.

The killer knows Jack is coming - and he’s ready.The Shots team of Mike Stotter, Ali Karim and Ayo Onatade met up with one of today’s greatest writers of crime fiction at the 2009 Crimefest conference in Bristol – Michael Connelly.

What Jack doesn’t know is that his investigation has inadvertently set off a digital tripwire. He reunites with FBI Agent Rachel Walling to go after a killer who has worked completely below police and FBI radar - and with perfect knowledge of any move against him. Jack’s real intention is to use his access to report and write a story that explains how societal dysfunction and neglect created a 16-year-old killer.īut as Jack delves into the story he soon realizes that Alonzo’s so-called confession is bogus, and Jack is soon off and running on the biggest story he’s had since The Poet crossed his path years before. But she has fallen for the oldest reporter’s trick in the book. Jack convinces Alonzo’s mother to cooperate with his investigation into the possibility of her son’s innocence. Jack focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer from the projects who has confessed to police that he brutally raped and strangled one of his crack clients. He is going to go out with a bang - a final story that will win the newspaper journalism’s highest honor - a Pulitzer prize. His last assignment? Training his replacement, a low-cost reporter just out of journalism school. Forced to take a buy-out from the Los Angeles Times as the newspaper grapples with dwindling revenues, he’s got only a few days left on the job.

Jack McEvoy is at the end of the line as a crime reporter.

The scarecrow michael connelly review