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The Poet

by Michael Connelly

Library Journal Edgar Award winner Connelly deserts popular series detective Harry Bosch for a new hero: crime reporter Jack MacElvoy, whose first case involves the fishy suicide of his detective brother.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly In a departure from his crime novels featuring LAPD's Harry Bosch, Connelly (The Last Coyote) sets Denver journalist Jack McEvoy on an intricate case where age-old evils come to flower within Internet technology. Jack's twin brother, Sean, a Denver homicide detective obsessed with the mutilation murder of a young woman, is discovered in his car, dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot, with a cryptic note written on the windshield. Jack's investigation uncovers a series of cop suicides across the country, all of which have in common both the cops' deep concerns over recent cases and their last messages, which have been taken, he quickly determines, from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. As his information reopens cases in Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas, New Mexico and Florida, Jack joins up with a team from the FBI's Behavioral Science Section, which includes sharp, attractive agent Rachel Walling. Connections between the dead cops, the cases they were working on and the FBI profile of a pedophile whom readers know as William Gladden occur at breakneck speed, as Jack and the team race to stay ahead of the media. Edgar-winning Connelly keeps a surprise up his sleeve until the very end of this authoritatively orchestrated thriller, when Jack finds himself in California, caught at the center of an intricate web woven from advanced computer technology and more elemental drives. (Jan.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book list In Connelly's best-selling thriller, crime reporter Jack McEvoy sets out to prove that his cop brother didn't kill himself, but he winds up tracking a serial killer, dubbed the Poet, who forces his victims to leave suicide notes drawn from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. A riveting novel in The Silence of the Lambs tradition. (Connelly's latest, set in L.A., is reviewed in this issue's Upfront section.)

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.