Not his best... ( )

An interesting look at an FBI murder investigation from a journalist's point of view. Jack Riley is an investigative reporter with a plum beat with the Rocky Mountain News where he covers the police beat on his own terms. As the story opens, Jack finds out that his twin brother, Sean, has killed himself in a deserted parking lot of a National Park. The thinking was that an unsolved gruesome murder has haunted Sean, and he couldn't take it any more.

When Jack breaks the story, he uncovers details that bring in the FBI to begin to link his brother's suicide with similar suicides by cops. The other side of the story that Jack finds, and that the FBI investigates, are the series of children's murders committed to which these same cops are assigned.

Because of Jack's breaking the case wide open, he is given access to the FBI during its investigation of this case. The common theme of suicide with quotes from Edgar Allen Poe's works begin to point to murders, not suicides. And we are also given the POV of a pedophile named Gladden, released from years-long imprisonment on a technicality, who continues to stalk children now that he is back on the streets.

While the ending seemed like a necessary wrap-up due to the length of this book, the story itself is a good one and kept me and my book group guessing. ( )

Really really good with lots of twists and turns (a couple of which I should have seen coming but didn't). Not only does Connelly craft a great plot, his characters are wonderful multiple layers of humanity. Even a character who you may think is a stock character turns out not to be. Jack McEvoy is the star of this one, a newspaperman whose policeman brother is thought to have committed suicide over a tragic case that he has been unable to solve. Jack wants to figure out the why and uncovers a whole heck of a lot more. He ends up getting himself embedded with the FBI (and in-bedded with one particular agent, Rachel Walling). You never quite know what's coming next and just when you think it's over, it's not. (I am a huge fan of Harry Bosch and wasn't sure how I'd feel about a non-HB book by Connelly, but I am sold.) ( )

Like the proverbial onion and peeling back layers, wow!
Homicide detectives committing suicide
Children or people associated with them being killed.
The reader thinks they know the killer
Is there multiple killers
Why are people dying?
This book is absolutely fantastic.
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I like that I can pick up a book by Michael Connelly and it will always be good, as was this one. The ending just disappointed me a bit as the actual 'Poet' turned out to be someone whom we got to know throughout the book, but there were no clues as to why this particular person turned out to be the Poet. I still don't understand the motivation as to why this person became such an evil human being, maybe it will be explained in following books? All in all, a page tuner from beginning to end. ( )