A Reporter Tracks a Killer in FAIR WARNING

 Author Michael Connelly brings back crime reporter Jack McEvoy in a new thriller, Fair Warning. McEvoy appeared previously in the best selling novels The Poet and The Scarecrow, where his reporting helped hunt down diabolical serial killers. 

Jack lost his prior newspaper job and is now reporting for a small investigative website magazine called Fair Warning. But when a woman he knew briefly is murdered by an unknown killer, it leads Jack to look into her death. He uncovers a pattern of similar murders of other female victims, all having their necks broken in an identical manner. McEvoy reaches the chilling answer that a serial predator is at work.

The killer is called The Shrike. Jack finds the link between the scattered victims. All of them had sent their DNA samples to an ancestry analysis service. The Shrike used that same service to find his next targets.

The LAPD is also investigating and they don't want McEvoy interfering in the case. But the police don't know about the serial killer pattern yet. Jack is way ahead of the cops and he wants to be the first to publish a story on The Shrike. But the killer is already watching what McEvoy is doing.

Fair Warning is another addictive read from Michael Connelly. The novel follows the methodical work of a crime reporter as it builds toward a wrenching final reckoning for Jack McEvoy.

 

A Hurricane and Murder in CAMINO WINDS

John Grisham returns to the setting of his previous crime novel, Camino Island, in an entertaining new mystery, Camino Winds.

The main character from the first book is back again--- Bruce Cable, the owner of Bay Books, a popular literary hangout on the resort island off the Florida coast. Bruce is enjoying the pleasant tropical life he leads amidst a circle of local writers, when the sudden forecast of a dangerous hurricane headed for the island changes everything.

Panic ensues as the island undergoes emergency evacuation. Bruce Cable is one of a handful of locals who stay behind to ride out the storm. The arrival of Hurricane Leo is quite exciting as the savage winds smash across Camino Island.

Cable survives the storm, with heavy damage to his bookstore. As the locals emerge to survey the destruction, Bruce notices that one friend, writer Nelson Kerr, is missing. When they look for him, Kerr is found dead at his condo. But the storm didn't kill him. Someone else on the island did.

From there, the novel settles into a search for who killed Kerr, and why. Clues point to a new crime novel that Kerr had just finished about criminal abuse at a large chain of nursing homes. But the novel may have been an expose of crimes happening at a real company, and a book that someone powerful didn't want to see published.

Camino Winds is a pleasantly readable mystery that moves along at a leisurely pace. For fans of the author, it's another satisfying entry to add to the John Grisham shelf.