When veteran cop-beat reporter Jack McEvoy gets pink- slipped, he decides to write his final piece with an eye on a Pulitzer. And why not? Jack already has one bestseller under his belt and more than a decade's worth of experience.

Jack has two weeks to train his replacement and turn in his story, which revolves around an impoverished young gang- banger-turned-killer. The farther Jack gets into the story, the more convinced he becomes that the kid is actually innocent. As Jack and his young trainee get closer to the truth, the murderer turns a cold eye on the two of them. It's not long before Jack does prove the kid's innocence but with devastating consequences to the team.

Jack turns to the FBI and his old friend Rachel Walling for help. It's a race against time with a killer who is an expert at navigating the information highway we call the Internet. Jack and Rachel can't make a move that the killer doesn't track. He manages to stay two steps ahead of them as he seamlessly covers his tracks and plans his disappearance. He plans for Jack and Rachel to disappear as well, permanently.

THE SCARECROW works on so many levels. It's an excellent thriller, fast-paced and hard to put down. The idea that there are people who can mess with your life with a few keystrokes gives most of us nightmares. Emptying bank accounts, canceling credit cards; this is the stuff of real nightmares. It's hard to be sure how often it actually happens and how many of the stories are urban legends, but it pushes our buttons just the same. Set in Harry Bosch's world but without the actual Harry, Jack (from Connelly's novel THE POET) and Rachel make a fine team. I stopped hoping Harry would show up fairly early in. Well...not really, but this novel doesn't suffer any because he's not here. The other plotline in THE SCARECROW is the death of the newspaper. It's a crime and one that Jack, Rachel...and Harry can't begin to solve.