Michael Connelly's THE SCARECROW: Another Fun Read

Michael Connelly's latest book, THE SCARECROW, involves a soon-to-be-laid-off long-time LA Times reporter Jack McEvoy, who decides to "go out with a bang" by writing an investigative story about a black boy from South LA who may be wrongfully accused of murder. McEvoy finds  a heck of a lot more than he thought he would as a high-tech company and some techno savvy employees there try to thwart his investigation. As a result, although the kid from South LA gets out of jail, McEvoy and his gorgeous (of course) FBI girlfriend nearly lose their lives every few pages.

THE SCARECROW may sound corny, but it really is a fun read. I hadn't read a Connelly novel before and wasn't expecting much but was pleasantly surprised.  I really enjoyed it.

If you haven't read Connelly before but enjoy authors such as Harlan Coben, Lisa Scottoline, Stephen White, or Lee Child, you'll like THE SCARECROW. You'll probably want to read some of Connelly's others, too. I do.

Now that that's said, I have some comments, two that are coincidences, personal to me.

• Coincidence: As I said, McEvoy is about to be laid off as a news reporter and wants to write a Pulitzer Prize winning story that he imagines will make the LA Times sorry, which is  a sort-of coincidence for me. When I had graduated from college, I got a job as a staff writer on a newspaper, not one anything as great as the LA Times, just a weekly newspaper in Michigan. Eventually, I was laid off that job.
  
  After my layoff I learned that an article I had written for the paper won an award from the Michigan Press Association, certainly not the Pulitzer Prize but not bad for a girl just out of college.
• Coincidence: Later in the book, McEvoy's boss offers him a temporary contract job with no benefits that would pay much less than he had been making. Another personal coincidence. At one time during my career as a technical writer, I was laid off a job only to be offered a temporary contract with no benefits.
  
  While McEvoy dramatically refuses his offer, I didn't. I needed the money so had to swallow my pride and accept.
• Comment: I was pleased that Connelly didn't strive to be politically correct in his book. I know many authors would have described some of these characters differently so they didn't offend anyone.
• Comment: The beginning of the book has a reporter with less experience than McEvoy who will take his place because she makes a lot less money. But she does have news writing experience between undergrad and grad school with a newspaper in Florida. And she does have a masters degree in journalism. Yet she has to ask McEvoy what it means to put "30" at the end of an article.
  
  Give me a break! You can't take a single journalism class and not know what that means!
• Irritation: McEvoy is smart and performs as a smart person would--except when he is around his FBI agent girlfriend. She is unbelievably all-knowing. Whenever they're together, she bosses McEvoy around, and he meekly takes direction from her, suddenly out of his own ideas and dependent on her brains.

Because I read an uncorrected advance proof, I noticed many editorial and typographical errors. It would be interesting to see if these were all caught in the final published copy, especially one of my pet peeves: misuse of ensure, assure, and insure.