Firstly my Michael Connelly choice for October was The Scarecrow.
Not one from the Harry Bosch series but featuring a character new to me, although I believe there has been at least one other in which he appeared.
Jack McEvoy is the crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times who many years before wrote a bestselling novel after working with the FBI on a serial killer case.
The Scarecrow begins with Jack receiving his pink slip with the added insult that he has to train his pretty, young female (and much less paid) replacement before he goes.
If his journalistic career is over, Jack decides it has to end in glory and so he follows up a lead into the wrongful arrest of a young gang member for the murder of an exotic dancer.
A story he thinks might just get him a Pulitzer Prize.
He discovers plenty of flaws in the case which lead to another, similar murder committed in Las Vegas.
Whilst investigating there he contacts Rachel Walling, the FBI officer he worked with on the previous serial killer case, she reluctantly agrees to help once again.
The further they delve into the case the more they realise they are now being hunted by the Unsub/Scarecrow and the tension in the story builds page by page until reaching it's dramatic conclusion.
When I first started reading this book I thought that it wasn't as good as those from the Harry Bosch series, however, I soon changed my mind as the links fell into place and I did enjoy The Scarecrow after all.
(I seem to recall that I read a review of this book on a blog which sent me off to bookmooch where I was lucky enough to find a copy to mooch.)
Savannah is one of my favourite cities to visit, I co-hosted the Quimper Club's annual meeting there in 2010 and came to know it well.
Savannah Blues was a delight to read, quite light and frothy not like The Scarecrow at all.
I took it on the train with me when I went up to Paris last week and the time passed very quickly!
I finished reading the book on the way back home the next day.
"Weezie" Foley finds herself living in the carriage house of the beautifully restored Savannah townhouse she once occupied with her unfaithful husband Tamadge Evans III.
His new fiancee, Caroline, rules the roost there now and she wants Weezie out.
As an antiques picker Weezie spends her days combing Savannah's garage sales, flea markets and house clearances, one day she hopes to have enough money to open her own antiques shop.
Her life starts to unfurl at the edges when she discovers a dead body in a cupboard, during an unauthorised look around Beaulieu a run down antebellum rice plantation, in the dead of night.
The book is full of well drawn characters, BeBe Weezie's best friend; priest turned lawyer Uncle James; ex hunk of a boyfriend, Daniel; Merijoy, evangelical campaigner and leading light of the Hysterical/Historical society and many others.
Quote from the cover:
"An amazingly accomplished, genre-bending debut novel: smart, sassy, and fun to read" Booklist.
I wouldn't disagree and by the way I'll be adding both of these books to my inventory on bookmooch.
