The Poet

The Poet by Michael Connelly  510 pp.

I have never read any of Connelly's books before and I'm not sure I will again. Connelly is the author of the Harry Bosch series. This was the first in a series featuring reporter Jack McEvoy. The premise and story are intriguing but the execution is long and drawn out. McEvoy's police detective twin brother commits suicide but McEvoy has a hard time believing it. His investigations turn up a series of other officer suicides all with connections to vicious murders being investigated by those officers. The suicide notes left by the officers all feature quotes from Edgar Allan Poe. McEvoy works with the FBI in finding the killer who has connections to a network of pedophiles. Of course, there is a love interest and an unexpected twist at the end. It just seemed as if the story would never end and I was ready for it to be done about 150 pages before it finally did. The audiobook was well narrated by Buck Schirner.

Dead Souls

Dead Souls by Ian Rankin  406 pp.

I haven't read many of the books in the Inspector Rebus series but I generally enjoy them because Rebus is far from the perfect cop. This episode, however, was hard to get through. There are so many story lines going on it was hard to keep track of all the characters. A police colleague of Rebus's committed suicide with no explanation, a known pedophile has come under Rebus's suspicions, a released convicted murderer deported from the U.S. is targeting Rebus and his friends and family, the son of old friends has gone missing, and Rebus's love life becomes convoluted. To add to my confusion the pedophile is named Darren and the missing man is named Damon. Everything is resolved satisfactorily at the end but it was a slog to get there.