The Poet

Rating:
Summary: Great page-turner!
Review: A friend recommended Michael Connelly when I said I hadn't read a really good thriller since Riptide by Preston and Child. I got the Poet the next day, and I read it in three big gulps. There are many parts of the book where it is simply impossible to stop reading.

I'll stay away from the plot(and I recommend you stay away from reviews that tell you too much), but it involves a likeable narrator, the FBI profilers, a truly creepy villain, and many plot twists that still make sense after you catch your breath.

If you are looking for a thriller, and you don't have to get to sleep soon, then this book is certainly for you. I plan to read all of the Michael Connelly books this summer, and that's the highest praise I can give an author.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Read!
Review: A reporter, Jack McEvoy, looks into the death of his twin brother, a homicide detective who is found dead in his vehicle, an apparent suicide. Doubting the facts, he investigates the circumstances of his brother's death and uncovers cases of assumed suicides of other officers, with one commonality, a suicide note that apparently is a line from a poem. This opens an official investigation for a serial killer dubbed "The Poet." This book may not grab you right off the bat, but after you get into it, you keep turning those pages longer than you intended to. If you like details of crime investigations you will like this book. The main character, Jack, is not a super-hero, but a believable and likeable good guy, who's persistence and determination one has to admire. The pedophile personality in the book is very disturbing, and the murders descriptive, so it is not for the squeamish reader. I liked the fact that the book keeps you wondering as to who the real cop-killer is. The only disappointment was in the killers motivation - when the real killer is revealed, it is unclear what caused the individual to go wrong and created such an evil, warped personality... it is also open to a sequel, but since this was written in 1996 I should think Connelly would have had one out by now if he is going to do one.

Rating:
Summary: OMG !!
Review: I had purchased this book mainly due to the reviews that I had been reading. (Note: I do not normally read murder/mystery genra...I tend to lean towards historical and occult fiction, yet as a book fanatic, I try not to limit myself ;)

"The Poet" is the first I have read by M. Connelly, and I have to say of all the books that I have read, this one scared the bejeasus out of me!! I proudly would have stated that I can't be frightened by a book, I had read it all, there wasn't a hack and slash or horror out there I would have been surprised by...until now.

The story is centered around a reporter, Jack McEnvoy. It begins with Jack's need to question the motives surrounding his brothers suicide. In a reporters need to uncover the 'reason' for things happening, Jack finds odd clues that soon lead him to understand that his brother, (a Denver Homicide Detective), was really murdered and his death can be linked with the deaths of other homicide detectives around the country. (It is never that simple in fiction though is it?:) In each death, the detective was working on a high profile case involving the murder of a person/child who was killed in horribly brutal and violent ways, each case lead the investigators to a brick wall. Soon Jack realizes that there may be TWO serial killers out there working together, how could one guy do all this? He scrambles on a journey to 'catch a killer..' and find the answers that have been unanswered surrounding his brother's death.

The story catches your interest, keeps it hanging and blows you from one theory to the next. Just when you think you know the answer to 'who done it', he blows your theory out of the water. His writing is such that you don't get the heads up of what is going on much before the lead character, Jack, does. I found the dialog a bit stilted at times, but overall the book read more like a movie playing out than it did an actual novel.

The reason I had to give 5 stars was the scare factor. Although most of what I tend to read would creep the jadded readers out, MC writes about a horror that could be lurking in your town, right now. Reality, and the perception of the deviant minds of our fellow human beings was portrayed so well, that I was afriad to read the next page, but couldn't force myself to stop. When Steven King prefaced in the intro about 'sleeping with the lights on', he wasn't blowing smoke!! This book creeps you out in a way that no witch, demon, or blood ceremony can!! It makes you think that the guy you ran into at the grocery store or your English Professor could be "him....like that..". It makes you want the ability to read your fellow human minds just to be sure there isn't some kind of disturbed mind lurking in there just waiting to get out to butcher and slaughter you!

Sure that sounds a bit fanciful and a dramatic raving of a book, but as I said, I don't read this genra often. I think I will now though. Nothing says 'I am a 34 yr. old sleeping with the lights on' like a novel about the scariest monster/demon of all....the human!!

Rating:
Summary: A very good book
Review: I have just re-read "The Poet", which is the book that got me onto Michael Connelly, and I see again why I liked it the first time around. I remember thinking at the time that the ending was "Hollywood", in that it seemed that the author wanted a film made out of it. Not necessarily bad; just different. You can't expect an author to bring out perfection every time, and the variety you get from trying out these sorts of things is usually a good thing.

What's good about the book? Great gritty descriptions; interesting characters; great dialogue; very interesting plot. It's the sort of thing that will captivate you if you're interested. And you have to pay attention. Some reviewers have bitched about the book, saying "people can't kill or hurt someone else while under hypnosis". That's true. But, if you read carefully, no-one in the book does. Other people complain about the ending being totally "fake" or "unpredictable". If you pay attention as you read, you'll notice a number of subtle clues that point the way. Probably too subtle for some. Re-reading this book is like watching "Basic Instinct" or "The Usual Suspects" a second time; you get a lot more out of it. And some people complain that the plot has holes -- on reflection, I can't agree. I thought it was very tightly (and very well) plotted. Things pull together at the end, not apart.

The bad parts? There aren't many. ....

All in all, grab this book. If you like it, or even if you like most of the book but not the ending, you will like Connelly's others.

Rating:
Summary: I felt cheated
Review: I read this book to the end, but by page 400 (yes, it has about 500 pages! They always have 500 pages, no matter how little they have to say! Do these guys get paid by the page or something?) the plot had began to exhibit more holes than a sieve, and I had not even got to the end yet! I don't mind open endings, but in this case the ending cannot be properly described as "open," rather, the author did feel like he should be bothered to explain anything at all. He just chose the most unlikely suspect and named him as the culprit... he might as well have said that the butler did it. I love crime novels, but lately, reading them has become a frustrating exercise, because the authors seem to believe we readers are idiots! The story is contrived and unbelievable, for example, do you really believe that the real FBI would have allowed a journalist (and a relative of one of the victims to boot) to get inside the investigation? Nah, me neither. You know you cannot force a person to commit suicide by hypnosis, and Connelly also knows it, but he breezily dismisses this fact. And so on. And to cap it all, the hero is a whiner! When he complains about losing always when playing solitaire with his computer I had to laugh, but not because I was amused. Ah, do I miss the Continental Op.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing
Review: This is the first book I've read by Mr. Connelly and I found it to be a great read. Jack McEvoy is a crime reporter whose twin brother, a homicide investigator, is brutally murdered. Although the police rule the death a suicide, Jack is unable to accept this and begins his own investigation. This leads to the discovery of similar murders involving other homicide investigators across America, and the FBI becomes involved. Jack is allowed to be part of the investigation and becomes involved with Rachel Walling, an agent with the FBI.

This mystery is full of twists and turns and is a fascinating read. The characters are great, the investigation intriguing, and the real Poet a surprise.

Call me a fan.