The Poet was published by Little, Brown and Company in 1996, Connelly’s first standalone (non-Bosch) novel and a departure that proved his range extended beyond the single-protagonist series format. The novel is narrated by Jack McEvoy, a crime reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver — drawing on Connelly’s own journalism career.
Jack’s twin brother Sean, a homicide detective, is found dead in his car with a suicide note quoting Poe. Jack doesn’t believe it — Sean was not suicidal, and the case he was working (a child murder) was moving forward. Jack begins his own investigation and discovers a pattern: homicide detectives across the country have been dying in apparent suicides, each scene arranged with a literary quotation. Someone is killing cops — specifically, cops working child-murder cases — and making the deaths look self-inflicted.
The investigation leads Jack to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit and to Agent Rachel Walling — who becomes both professional ally and romantic interest. As they close in on the killer (dubbed “the Poet” for his literary signatures), the novel develops into a cat-and-mouse thriller where the predator is watching the investigators as closely as they watch him.
Connelly’s journalism background informs both the narrative voice (McEvoy writes like a reporter — concrete, detail-oriented, suspicious of official narratives) and the procedural mechanics (the novel is meticulous about how investigations actually work, how jurisdictions compete, and how information moves through institutional channels).
Collecting The Poet
First edition (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1996): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $25–$60
- Signed first edition: $50–$120
- Without jacket: $5–$12