The Scarecrow (Connelly novel)

After being laid off by the Los Angeles Times, Jack McEvoy is given two weeks to train his replacement, Angela Cook, and decides that he wants to write one more major story before his last day. He focuses on the case of 16-year-old drug dealer Alonzo Winslow, who is being held by police for the brutal rape and murder of a stripper in Santa Monica. However, after he is given access to the case files, Jack learns that Alonzo only confessed to stealing the car containing the body, not to the crime itself.

In researching trunk murders on the Internet, Angela unwittingly finds evidence of a similar crime in Las Vegas. However, her research took her to a "trap" site set up by the real killer: Wesley Carver, an MIT graduate who is the chief security officer of a server farm in Mesa, Arizona. Carver cracks her e-mail password and learns that Jack is headed to Las Vegas. He promptly creates a fake data emergency so that his company will send him to Los Angeles.

The next day, Jack finds that neither his credit cards nor his cell phone work, and is forced to buy a burner phone. He shares evidence of the identical L.A. murder to the attorney for the convicted Las Vegas murderer, who gives Jack a letter permitting him to meet his client at Ely State Prison. During the lengthy drive on the "loneliest road in America", Jack calls his former girlfriend, FBI Agent Rachel Walling, to report the "under the radar" serial killer, while also mentioning his electronic problems.

When he arrives at the prison, Jack is told that he cannot see the prisoner until the next day. He books a room in a local hotel, where he encounters another guest in cowboy attire with distinctive sideburns. He unexpectedly finds Rachel in his room, having taken an FBI plane to the prison after she realized that Jack's discoveries and his electronic problems were linked but had no way to warn him. Rachel and Jack learn that "Sideburns" is not staying at the hotel and surmise that he must be the killer.

When calling the Times, Jack learns that Angela has disappeared. He and Rachel promptly return to L.A. During the flight, Rachel notes that the victims were both exotic dancers with similar body types and that both had been put in leg braces while being sexually abused before death, a perversion known as abasiophilia. Rachel admits that her recent relationship with a police detective ended in part because she still had feelings for Jack. Upon arrival, the duo find Angela's dead body under Jack's bed, killed in the same style as the other victims.

Jack is quickly cleared of Angela's murder, and the evidence allows both Alonzo and the Las Vegas convict to be freed. The FBI links the trap site to Bill Denslow, a fake name used by an online client of Carver's server farm. Jack appears on CNN to discuss the case, but Rachel is forced to resign from the FBI for her unauthorized trip to Nevada. Meanwhile, Carver has his assistant, whom he gave the pseudonym "Freddie Stone", help him murder and bury the server farm's CEO and then quit.

Jack deduces that the killer knew non-public legal information about his victims and finds that all were represented by law firms whose sites were handled through Carver's server farm, just like the trap site. Posing as potential clients, he and Rachel visit the server farm and talk to Carver, who doesn't reveal that he knows their true identities. Following a trail laid by Carver, they find Stone's house, identify him as "Sideburns" and uncover evidence concerning the killings. They call in the FBI, and Rachel is able to use her role in finding the killer to regain her job.

Jack agrees to return to L.A. and goes to Rachel's hotel room to say goodbye—but finds that she has just been kidnapped by Stone. He intercepts them, rescues an unconscious Rachel from a laundry bin and then kills Stone in a battle on the top floor. Rachel tells Jack that the FBI believes there were two killers: Stone and Angela's murderer. With Carver's "help", Rachel and the FBI team find evidence that Stone and the missing CEO committed all of the murders.

Jack's high profile causes the Times to offer his job back, even though his role as a participant means that he cannot write about the case. Jack turns down the offer and accepts a two-book deal. However, Jack then sees a picture from The Wizard of Oz in his editor's office and realizes that the method used to suffocate the victims is similar to the head of a scarecrow. He immediately heads to Arizona to warn a disbelieving Rachel, but unfortunately meets her in a coffee shop near the server farm with a full-time webcam. Jack deduces that they are being watched by 'The Scarecrow' over the webcam.

Carver watches their discussion, then ambushes the other FBI agents. His plan to kill the agents and fake his own death is foiled when Jack figures it out. Rachel shoots Carver in the head, leaving him in a seemingly permanent comatose state. In a brief epilogue, Jack's research has revealed that Carver's mother was an exotic dancer similar in appearance to the victims who needed to wear leg braces when not performing. The story closes with Carver in medical lockdown, deep in a coma, alone with his thoughts.

Connelly wrote and produced a pre-release video for the novel and a series of three videos entitled "Conflict of Interest", directed by Terrill Lankford, presenting a connection between Rachel Walling and the events of this story prior to the start of the book. The videos have been posted on YouTube:

• The Scarecrow
• Conflict of Interest, Chapter One
• Conflict of Interest, Chapter Two
• Conflict of Interest, Chapter Three