The Scarecrow

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Michael Connelly writes about real places in his books. Here are a few of the locations mentioned in The Scarecrow.

Jack McEvoy’s Dictionary

Excerpt From The Scarecrow

I leaned back in my chair and studied the contents of my cubicle. A desk, a computer, a phone and two shelves stacked with files, notebooks and newspapers. A red leather-bound dictionary so old and well used that the Webster’s had been worn off its spine. My mother had given it to me when I told her I wanted to be a writer.

It was all I really had left after twenty years in journalism. All I would take with me at the end of the two weeks that had any meaning was that dictionary.

The Short Stop Bar

Excerpt From The Scarecrow

The Short Stop was on Sunset in Echo Park. That made it close to Dodger Stadium, so presumably it drew its name from the baseball position. It was also close to the Los Angeles Police Academy and that made it a cop bar in its early years. It was the kind of place you’d read about in Joseph Wambaugh novels, where cops came to be with their own kind and the groupies who didn’t judge them. But those days were long past. Echo Park was changing. It was getting Hollywood hip and the cops were crowded out of the Short Stop by the young professionals moving into the neighborhood. The prices went up and the cops found other watering holes. Police paraphernalia still hung on the walls but any cop who stopped in nowadays was simply misinformed.

Still, I liked the place because it was close to downtown and on the way to my house in Hollywood.

The Globe Lobby of the Los Angeles Times

Excerpt FromThe Scarecrow

The globe lobby was the formal entrance to the newspaper building at the corner of First and Spring. A brass globe the size of a Volkswagen rotated on a steel axis at the center of the room. The many international bureaus and outposts of the Times were permanently notched on the raised continents, despite the fact that many had been shuttered to save money. The marble walls were adorned with photos and plaques denoting the many milestones in the history of the paper, the Pulitzer Prizes won and the staffs that won them, and the correspondents killed in the line of duty. It was a proud museum, just as the whole paper would be before too long. The word was that the building was up for sale.

But I only cared about the next twelve days. I had one last deadline and one last murder story to write. I just needed that globe to keep turning until then.

The Loneliest Road In America

Excerpt From The Scarecrow

Highway 93 took me past Nellis Air Force Base and then connected with 50 North. It wasn’t too long before I began to see why it was known as the loneliest road in America. The empty desert ruled the horizon in every direction. Hard, chiseled mountain ranges, barren of any vegetation, rose and fell away as I drove. The only signs of civilization were the two-lane blacktop and the power lines carried over the ranges by iron stick figures that looked like they were giants from another planet.