title: The Poet
author:  Michael Connelly 
description: In a departure from his crime novels featuring LAPD's Harry Bosch, Connelly (The Last Coyote) sets Denver journalist Jack McEvoy on an intricate case where age-old evils come to flower within Internet technology. Jack's twin brother, Sean, a Denver homicide detective obsessed with the mutilation murder of a young woman, is discovered in his car, dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot, with a cryptic note written on the windshield. Jack's investigation uncovers a series of cop suicides across the country, all of which have in common both the cops' deep concerns over recent cases and their last messages, which have been taken, he quickly determines, from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. As his information reopens cases in Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas, New Mexico and Florida, Jack joins up with a team from the FBI's Behavioral Science Section, which includes sharp, attractive agent Rachel Walling. Connections between the dead cops, the cases they were working on and the FBI profile of a pedophile whom readers know as William Gladden occur at breakneck speed, as Jack and the team race to stay ahead of the media. Edgar-winning Connelly keeps a surprise up his sleeve until the very end of this authoritatively orchestrated thriller, when Jack finds himself in California, caught at the center of an intricate web woven from advanced computer technology and more elemental drives. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  ![Cover](images/9780759528277.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Copyright](Poet_toc.html#copy-1)
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
  
  
  places and incidents are the product of the author’s
  
  
  imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
  locales, or persons, living
  
  
  or dead, is coincidental.
  
  
  
  
  
  WARNER BOOKS EDITION
  
  
  Copyright © 1997 by Hieronymous, Inc.
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Warner Books
  
  
  Hachette Book Group
  
  
  237 Park Avenue
  
  
  New York, NY 10017
  
  
  
  
  
  Visit our website at
  [www.HachetteBookGroup.com](http://www.HachetteBookGroup.com).
  
  
  
  
  
  First eBook Edition: April 2003
  
  
  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2827-7
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Contents
  
  
  [Copyright](Poet_copyright.html)
  
  
  [Critics Sing the Praises of Michael Connelly’s _the Poet_](Poet_epig_1.html)
  
  
  [Books by Michael Connelly](Poet_adca_1.html)
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](Poet_ackn_1.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 1](Poet_chap_1.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 2](Poet_chap_2.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 3](Poet_chap_3.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 4](Poet_chap_4.html)
  
  
  [Chap