The Poet

By: Michael Connelly

Narrated by: Buck Schirner

FROM THE #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HARRY BOSCH AND LINCOLN LAWYER SERIES

An electrifying standalone thriller that breaks all the rules!

Death is reporter Jack McEvoy's beat: his calling, his obsession. But this time, death brings McEvoy the story he never wanted to write - and the mystery he desperately needs to solve. A serial killer of unprecedented savagery and cunning is at large. His targets: homicide cops, each haunted by a murder case he couldn't crack. The killer's calling card: a quotation from the works of Edgar Allan Poe. His latest victim is McEvoy's own brother. And his last...may be McEvoy himself.

©1996 by Michael Connelly. (P)1996 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Not Bosch but an A+ story.

I am a great Bosch fan and had not read or heard of this novel, but as with all of MC’s books it keeps one on the edge and guessing. This is my first novel read by B Schirner who does an amazing job on keeping the listener in the flow of the story. The character development is wonderful.

not up to MC's usual standard.

mediocre story line. narration so annoying I barely finished. completely implausible and lacking suspense or believability. only for hard-core Connelly fans.

Starts strong, then weakens to a fizzle

The Poet was enjoyable for the first 3/4 of the book but then implausible plot twists take over. I thought Connelly (my first read by him) did a good job at character development. The main character was likably flawed.
However with the bases loaded Connelly did not bring the story home. I was definitely hooked and too far in not to finish but I was becoming suspicious if I had wasted my time around the last 1/4 of the book. The ending was just not as good as I would have liked, a bit odd.
The technology is outdated, which does not bother me since it reminds us about when payphones, pagers and fax machines were cutting edge.
The narrator is not a bad narrator but he sounded like a 50+ year old man when the main character is supposed to be 35, not a good fit for the story.
I purchased this on sale and I would recommend doing that. Its not a waste of time by any means I just hate a weak ending to a good story.

Had me to the end

Any additional comments?

It's a fantastic cop/thriller mistery that really kept me going to the very end. I will be reading additional books by this author.

Each time I read a review that makes negative comments about the pronuciation, I have rolled my eyes....till now. When Buck Schimer said, "peedifile" (which he says ALOT) I at first giggled...then rolled my eyes, then got nerved. It gets old quick. Add that to a number of dated technical ideas and this book is a little over the edge of being in it's prime.

It's a great cheap book - but, if I paid full price.... I'd not be happy.

Slow to Develop

Seemed very slow to flow & evolve—I had to start over several times. Last third to half more interesting. Predictable and trite sex/“romance”/“relationship” scenes & language. Rather poor grammar used by the novel’s protagonist Jack, a seasoned formally-trained journalist with a journalism school (“J school) pedigree.