Fair Warning by Michael Conelly

Remember reporter Jack McEvoy from The Scarecrow in 2009 and The Poet in 1996?  You do if you are a Michael Connelly nerd like me.  McEvoy returns in Fair Warning, the namesake of his employer, and the name of a consumer watch website.  Jack is restless as a consumer advocate reporter and haphazardly stumbles upon a murder investigation.  The murder was of Tina Portrero, a woman he had briefly dated a year earlier.  He is drawn into the investigation because the police interview him as a person of interest.  But further sleuthing leads him to a story about DNA being collected by ancestry type companies who self-regulate and sell their data to anyone interested, including men in involuntary celibate (Incel) groups who hate women to the point of violence and murder.  Jack engages his former love interest and former FBI profiler, Rachel Waller to help in his investigation.  They’re stirring of the pot soon brings the perpetrators out in the open and all involved in or with knowledge of the diabolical scheme become targets including Jack and Rachel.

Michael Connelly proves again he doesn’t need his beloved Harry Bosch as his protagonist to write a great story.  His ability to highlight his characters’ flaws yet compel the reader to love them anyway, comes through in his latest thriller… great entertainment.  Hope we don’t need to wait ten years for more.