It has taken author Michael Connelly 14 years to get back to his literary hero Jack McEvoy after the first outing in "The Poet," written way back in 1995. I hope that we won't have to wait another 14 years for the next version. In this 2009 entry McEvoy once again teams up with FBI Rachel Walling in a chilling thriller about a serial killer who always seems to be one step ahead of everyone, and that is because he is. He is a computer genius who can hack his way into any system to do what has to be done to cover his nefarious tracks along with stymieing anyone else who may being trying to track him. 

Connelly is nothing if not prolific, and his literary efforts have paid off handsomely, for he has won just about every mystery writer's award that there is, including the Edgar, the Anthony, the Macavity, the Nero, the Barry, the Ridley, the Maltese Falcon (Japan), the .38 Caliber (France), the Grand Prix (France), and the Premio Bancarella (Italy) award. He was also one of the creators, writers, and consulting producers for "Level 9," a cyber crime show that ran on UPN. Connelly has just turned fifty and he currently lives in Florida with his family.

This novel provides a penetrating examination of two workplaces that I find inherently interesting. One is the old style newsroom and the other is the up and coming computer server companies which have been built to warehouse the vast amounts of data created in our digital era. They are polar opposites in today's business world with one in the ascendancy and the other in a steep, perhaps fatal, decline. Of the two, I find the old style newsrooms to be more appealing in their own messy, ink-stained way. Conversely, I find server companies to be rather cold and scary for the potential power that they possess. If you share these feelings, please be forewarned that reading this book will do nothing to allay your fears.   

I especially appreciated the background touches that the author adds to the newsroom politics in this story, which takes place at the storied L.A. Times where long time employees are being terminated to be replaced by young, less expensive talent. In this case, art imitates real life... One of the beat reporters being let go is Jack McEvoy, who had been hired seven years earlier by the Times after his brilliant writing for the Rocky Mountain News where he described his exploits in solving the case of a serial killer called "The Poet." The case also inspired a successful novel.

With his reputation burnished by the resultant publicity, the then successful L.A. Times snapped up McEvoy to cover the crime beat in Los Angeles. Now McEvoy has become an easy target for a cost reduction because he is over forty and overpaid. He has just been given the news that he is been "RIF'ed" (Reduction in Force). The bad news travels fast with half  the Times staff avoiding him and the other half looking at him like he has the plague.

As a small paean to his talent, McEvoy is given two weeks to train his replacement and wind up his affairs. He discovers that Angela Cook, his replacement, is everything that he had expected her to be, which is young, pretty, ambitious, and a very recent graduate from a premier journalism school. Rather than being bitter, Jack appreciates the extra two weeks pay, since the money will be useful. Besides, he is looking for that final story that will allow him to go out in a blaze of glory.

Out of the blue an aging black woman named Wanda Sessums calls him up to berate him for accusing her grandson, Alonzo Winslow, of being a murderer. "Zo ain't no murderer." Jack can't even remember what she is talking about, but a search through his recent articles brings up a colorless tombstone piece about a juvenile in the projects being charged with murdering Denise Babbitt, a white woman whose body was found bound in the trunk of her car with a plastic bag tied over her lifeless face. 

Winslow had been hauled in by the LAPD and interviewed overnight without an attorney until he confessed. His fingerprint was on the mirror, and he lived with his grandmother at the Rodia Gardens projects where Babbitt, a known drug addict, had been seen  buying heroin. In spite of this evidence, there is something that doesn't jibe about a sixteen year old kid committing this brutal killing. Then Angela Cook stumbles upon a Las Vegas murder with exactly the same MO as that with Denise Babbitt...

Many miles away in another state Wesley Carver tends to his duties at "The Farm," a vast and highly secure data storage center, where he is the top technology officer and the top threat engineer. In fact, he designed the data center and he knows everything that goes on inside his domain. Carver has a nasty little habit in that he enjoys snooping through the personnel files of his firm's clients where he can hunt for women who might appeal to his particular needs... 

This is a top flight read for anyone looking for a meaty and suspenseful thriller. This story moves back and forth between the hunters and the hunted, and at times it is not always clear who is which. 2009, Little, Brown and Company.