Editorial Review:
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With his four Harry Bosch novels, Michael Connelly joined "the top rank of a new generation of crime writers" (Los Angeles Times). Connelly returns with his most searing thriller yet - a major departure that recalls the best work of Thomas Harris (Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs) and James Patterson (Along Came a Spider).
Our hero is Jack McEvoy, a Rocky Mountain News crime-beat reporter. As the novel opens, Jack's twin brother, a Denver homicide detective, has just killed himself. Or so it seems. But when Jack begins to investigate the phenomenon of police suicides, a disturbing pattern emerges, and soon suspects that a serial murderer is at work - a devious cop killer who's left a coast-to-coast trail of "suicide notes" drawn from the poems of Edgar Allan Poe. It's the story of a lifetime - except that "the Poet" already seems to know that Jack is trailing him...
Here is definitive proof that Michael Connelly is among the best suspense novelists working today.
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Reader Reviews for The Poet:
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Customer Rating:  
Summary: Dark and horrifying; A must-read for Connelly fans
Comment: The Poet is the first novel from Michael Connelly that doesn't feature Harry Bosch. Little matter, it's still a dark, disturbing, and incredibly compelling piece of work. The main character is Jack McEvoy, a Colorado reporter who is convinced that the recent death of his brother (a police officer) is due to murder instead of suicide. Same goes for several others across the country. McEvoy is just as riveting as Bosch: he's flawed, but he does all he can to solve the cases that he handles.
The book itself is a must-read for those who love crime thrillers. The tone, as well as the terrifying realism dominating the story, is disturbingly creepy from beginning to end. The subject matter (child abuse & pornography) is not for the faint of heart, so don't read this if you can't handle harsh subjects like these. On the other hand, I did have two problems with The Poet (hence the four-star rating). The first one being the major plot twist near the end, which wasn't very shocking or plausible. The other being the romantic subplot, which I have to say is really just below-average: it feels like it's nothing but filler, and there's really nothing interesting about the "supposed" chemistry between the two lovers.
The Poet, nonetheless, is one that I really enjoyed reading. Michael Connelly has just become one of my favorite authors, and I hope to read the next in the series (Trunk Music) soon.
Grade: 8.5/10
Customer Rating:
Summary: Could have been much better...
Comment: This was my first MC book and it could have been much better. It starts off rather demented but once you get past the first 100 pages, the plot is a page turner. While it is completely unbelievable, a good read doesn't have to be 100% realisitic. The ending is what kills this book. As the reader, you will be left wondering what just happened!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointed by the Kindle Price
Comment: I love this guys books, unfortunately I am disappointed by the price of the Kindle version. I see it cost more than the Mass pub. paperback version. Thats just not right!
Customer Rating:
Summary: An average read undone by a poor ending
Comment: I've become a big fan of the Harry Bosch series and wanted to see if I liked other books in the Michael Connelly catalog. I was familiar with Jack McElvoy from the Bosch books and wanted to try this one. For me, it was an OK read throughout (a little slow in places), but I was really intrigued by the ending. It made perfect sense and I never saw it coming - until he suddenly shifted gears, came up with an entirely new ending which was not even close to as good as the original one and didn't make sense to me at all. Overall, just a 3.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Poetry in slow motion
Comment: You know how some artists do their best work in their early years and then become pale shadows of themselves in later years? It hasn't happened to Michael Connelly. In fact I'd say the reverse is true. "The Poet" was published in 1996 and the other 4 Connelly books I've read are from 2006 onwards. So it was quite a shock when I expected the same frenetic pacing and superb writing Connelly has shown in recent books to be completely absent in this, one of his best loved books. His latest "The Scarecrow" is the second book to feature Jack McEvoy, the hero of "The Poet", and was a fantastic, gripping read, paced well, written convincingly, and was a joy.
"The Poet" is a bulkier book at around 480 pages compared to his usual count of 400 pages but feels much longer. McEvoy plods through police reports, interviews with witnesses and colleagues, before meeting up with the FBI and Agent Rachel Walling. From there is a similarly slow moving "chase" across the country to find "The Poet" before he kills again.
The book hasn't dated well either. Many references to modems, asking receptionists to do searches through archives (the days before Google - how did we manage?), pagers (before the widespread use of cell phones), all show the mid 90s era of it. It's not really a bad thing, it's quite quaint, but it does take you out of the story and at times is unintentionally humourous.
One of the things I noticed was that in the 21st century Connelly, he doesn't bother with sex scenes. A simple sentence "And then they made love" suffices in recent books like "Echo Park" (2006) and "The Scarecrow" (2009) whereas in "The Poet" we get agonisingly bad sex scenes with descriptions of "from here to eternity kisses" (p.331) and "My sense of Rachel was that she was craving the intimacy of the act, not as much the sensual pleasure as the closeness with another human being. It was that way for me as well, but I also found a deep carnal desire for her body." (p.265) followed by a description of Rachel breasts "she has wide and dark areolas on small breasts" (p.265). Eeeeergh. At least he's given up on such cringeworthy prose and settled down with a simple "And then they made love". Thank god.
What I mean is that of all of the features I love about Connelly's prose in modern classics as "The Lincoln Lawyer" and "Echo Park" is the directness of the writing and the focus of the story. This is rare in any writer, modern or classic, and the fact that Connelly can do this, seemingly effortlessly and well, highlights his extraordinary abilities as a writer. The real shame is that most of this is absent from "The Poet" and it shows Connelly in an early stage of honing his style. What's left is a thick, turgid book that's very easy to put down. Something I never thought I'd say about this author's work. Of course I'll continue reading his work, however first time readers to Michael Connelly would be better directed to some of his more recent work than this overrated novel.
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