The Scarecrow

This is an okay book written by Michael Connelly. Jack McEvoy is at the end of the line as a crime reporter. Once a hotshot in the newsroom, Jack is now in the crosshairs of the latest set of layoffs at the Los Angeles Times. He decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paper to write the definitive murder story of his career. Jack focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a sixteen-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to the brutal murder of a young woman found strangled in the truck of her car. Jack plans to write about how societal dysfunction and neglect created a teenage killer. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow’s so-called confession is bogus. The kid might actually be innocent.

This is the second novel to feature both Jack McEvoy and Rachel Walling and is a sequel to the events in The Poet.