The Scarecrow was actually the first novel of Michael Connelly's that took me a while to get into. In the past I have been hooked on the first page, ripping through his well crafted scenes, absorbing his frightening characters to the point of sleepless nights. But in The Scarecrow, I found myself on page 50, wondering out loud when this was going to get going!
I learned after finishing that he had to rewrite it several times because of the day to day changes to some of his subject matter. Unfortunately that seemed unintentionally translated to the reader - at least to me. In the beginning, the story seemed stilted and over worked.
Never the less, The Scarecrow did not leave me disappointed AT ALL. It was a brilliant novel. It made me think about all of the technology that we employ to speed us through our days, to market ourselves, to learn about the rapidly changing world around us while trying to maintain personal connections to one another. His evil characters prey upon this need, our entrenched reliance upon technology (the Internet) to harm physically, financially and psychologically. Connelly has an uncanny ability to tap into the gritty center of evil and describe it in such a way that stays with the reader for a while.
Michael Connelly did not disappoint with this addition to his library of suspenseful thrillers. I cannot imagine how hard it is to write about "to the minute" subject matter. The re-writing did have an effect, but not one enough to deter a reader from The Scarecrow.
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