The Scarecrow

While investigating what drove sixteen-year-old Alonzo Wilson to strangle a young woman and shove her in the trunk of a car, L.A. Times reporter Jack McEvoy discovers evidence that the boy was innocent. The paper is gearing up for another round of buyouts and layoffs, so he sees this mystery--a false confession, an eerily similar murder in Vegas not too long ago--as a way to keep his job while tracking down a dangerous criminal. The killer is always ahead of the cops, though, and now Jack's got a digital watchdog at his back. Returning to the tenacious reporter for the first time since "The Poet", Michael Connelly bridges the divide between cyberspace and the broadsheet with this gripping thriller.