Book reviews by Hugh: 'The Scarecrow' and 'Roadside Crosses'

Hugh writes:
For recreational reading, I am attracted to various authors with crime solving main characters. Among others, I like Stuart Wood’s characters Stone Barrington and Holly Barker, Harlen Coben’s Myron Bolitar and his irrepressible sidekick Win, Michael Connelly’s detective Harry Bosh, John Standford’s Lucas Devenport, James Patterson’s Alex Cross, and of course Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall.

I have just read two recent books of the genre with plots relating to computers and the internet: "The Scarecrow" and "Roadside Crosses."

Click the "Continue reading..." link below to see Hugh's reviews.
Michael Connelly’s novel "The Scarecrow" features Jack McEvoy, the hero of his previous book, "The Poet." Jack is a top crime beat reporter at the Los Angeles Times, but things being as they are in the newspaper business, he has just been downsized and given two weeks notice. When he happens upon what appears to be a serial killer, he decides that the story can be the biggest of his career and perhaps save his job. With the help of his FBI agent girlfriend Rachel, he becomes involved with the case.

The Scarecrow is the villain. He is a computer guru who works for a data storage company that specializes in safe storage of documents in digital form for large corporations and prestigious law firms. His nickname derives from his position in the firm. He is responsible for scaring away would-be hackers who would steal or corrupt the data the company protects. The trouble is he uses his extensive computer knowledge to search the data his firm is storing in order to identify and stalk his victims, whom he then brutally murders.

The Scarecrow stays a step ahead of Jack and Rachel through his superior knowledge of cyberspace, but they manage to outwit him in the end, and Jack writes the story. You will have to read the book to see if the story saves his job.

The other cyber-related novel is "Roadside Crosses" by Jeffrey Deaver. James Chilton is the writer of a blog called “The Chilton Report” that editorializes on controversial topics and elicits reader comments. Chilton reports on a tragic auto accident that killed two local high school seniors. Most of the replies are from the dead girl’s classmates and point blame at another senior at the school, Travis Brigham, who was behind the wheel and only slightly injured when police arrived at the scene. Some of the postings are vicious and most are full of rumor and half-truths.

When physical attacks begin on those who posted comments unfavorable to Brigham, the case is given to Agent Kathryn Dance at the California Bureau of Investigation. When Brigham leaves home and disappears, he becomes the prime suspect. Dance uses her superior knowledge of kinesics — the ability to tell if witnesses are telling the truth by watching their body language. However, when she learns that Brigham is a loner addicted to online computer games, she calls on the expertise of Professor Jonathan Bolling from a nearby college to help with the technical computer aspects of the case.

A strange characteristic of the serial attacks is that before each, a crude cross and a bouquet of roses appear along a nearby roadside. The cross bears the future date of the attack. In a sub-plot, Dance’s life is complicated when her mother is arrested and charged with murder in connection with an apparent mercy killing at the hospital where her mom works as a nurse.

The book has so many characters that it is sometimes hard to keep track of them, and the plot takes some surprising twists and turns. In the end Dance and Bolling solve the crimes (with the help or some plot devices from Deaver) and bring the killer to justice. By the end of the book, Dance, a widow of two years with two pre-teen children, and Bolling, forty-something and never married, are forming a bond that promises to be more than just friendly and collegial. However, we will have to wait for the next book to see how that relationship turns out.

You do not have to be a computer “geek” to understand and enjoy either book, and you might learn something about what goes on in today’s fast paced cyberspace world.