Fair Warning by Michael Connelly

There are some spoilers ahead

When one of your favorite authors disappoints you, it's difficult to process your feelings sometimes. You have all of those fond memories of your other books together to keep you coming back for more. You bank on the next story being a return to what you expect from them....at least you hope. 

I've been reading all of Michael Connelly's books as I find them on the shelves of various libraries, but mostly as audiobooks so until recently I have avoided the Jack McEvoy books since I couldn't get it locally. When Fair Warning came out, I decided to do what needed to be done to read these books as well. The Poet was absolutely spectacular, it's probably my single favorite Connelly book. The Scarecrow wasn't as good, but still better than most. Then there's the newest book, Fair Warning. I'm conflicted about it. The primary plot and mystery was definitely interesting and kept me glued to the book as it developed into a thrilling cat and mouse game. BUT, in terms of the main character of Jack McEvoy, the book fell into a problem I've started to notice with Connelly's entire body of work. 

Michael Connelly is probably my favorite living mystery writer, but he doesn't let his main characters develop from novel to novel. In the Bosch series, this trend doesn't matter because all of the supporting characters around Bosch change other than his daughter. Bosch, then, is more of a foil around whom all of the other characters rotate. In the Mickey Haller series, it becomes very frustrating that at the start of the next book, Haller reverts to form after whatever character growth or development that transpired in the previous novel slides away to return to the status quo. Part of the reason that the newest Haller novel, The Law of Innocence, was so good was that Connelly finally broke that pattern and actually let Haller maintain an improved relationship with his ex-wife and daughter.....at least for the moment. 

Which is partly why I was so frustrated when in Fair Warning McEvoy made the exact same sort of mistake to blow a personal relationship up that he did in The Poet after fully recognizing and saying to the reader as a narrator that he was aware of having been the reason and cause of the mistake in the first book. I know all books can't or shouldn't have happy endings, but this felt like such a malicious forcing a break up into a book just to maintain the state of play or the dynamics of will they/ won't they get back together that I was sorely disappointed. 

The only thing I can think of to really justify that one choice to push a question too far as McEvoy could be explained partially by the book's plot. Fair Warning deals with issues surrounding genetics and their influence on behavior. While Connelly doesn't tread far down the philosophical and scientific discussion of the boundary line between nature and nurture, there are a couple of points where he leans towards posing the question to the reader about how much of what we do is consciously chosen of our own free will or is dictated by some other factors. Is Connelly's point that Jack hasn't or can't grow beyond his distrust of other and his insecurities to be able to enjoy a loving relationship? If that's the case, then I can almost tolerate the turn of events in the book. Damn it, I just want the kids to be together and happy and solving mysteries. Remember McMillian and Wife? Great show! It's ok to let characters be happy and together and still finding other conflicts to deal with. The Thin Man comes to mind as case in point. I'm looking at you Tom King. 

So, that's the end of my rant. Other than that one plot point that popped up in the last tenth of the book, this was a really interesting and thought provoking mystery about the dangers of our digital age and the predators lingering in the shadows that we don't even know exist. Damn, writing this has actually helped me be more okay with the book than I was when I started....still not happy about it though.