Tag Archives: Rachel Walling

Michael Connelly regularly mentions his other characters when writing a book, and in The Proving Ground he mentions Jack McEvoy’s earlier adventure, Fair Warning.  I didn’t think I had read that one, so I bought a nice hard back copy from World of Books. However, some of the passages felt familiar, and it turned out not only had I read it, but I had a paperback copy on my book shelf!

In this thriller, journalist Jack McEvoy finds himself under suspicion of murdering a woman with whom he’d had a date some time ago. Whilst innocent, he is intrigued and finds a link between her murder and her research into her family tree through a genetic data company. From there, her uncovers several more cases of women who suffered broken necks in supposed accidents, and who were customers of the same company.

This book also charts the torrid waters of his relationship with Rachel Walling, formerly of the FBI. They work together on this case, and rekindle their romance – but only for as long as Jack can put off his habit of relationship-sabotage.

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Jack McEvoy is a crime journalist whose position has been put at risk – meaning he has only two weeks left in the job. As well as handing over to a younger, cheaper journalist, he decides to go all out to write a final, brilliant story to show his employer what they’re missing. And perhaps he’ll be able to finish his first novel too.

Rather than a newspaper story, McEvoy uncovers a serial killer. He hooks up with Agent Rachel Walling of the FBI in order to investigate. Now, Walling has also appeared in other Connelly books with Harry Bosch – e.g. Echo Park. I love it when authors recycle characters across stories, Jeffrey Deaver does similar tricks.

The investigation focusses on a web hosting firm with a highly secure data centre. The description of “The Farm” (the grid of machines hosting sites) is quite interesting, although it’s a shame that the technicians are so stereotyped (not everyone that works with computer hardware is a long-haired hacker!).

It’s a pretty good story – hard not to have sympathy with McEvoy (who’s ex-wife is quite successful whilst he’s left jobless with few prospects), and there are sufficient twists to keep one’s interest.