This is the second book in the Charlie Parker series and it's the third that I have read in the series after EVERY DEAD THING and THE UNQUIET. And I think I am hooked on this series and will be looking forward to reading more of it.
This is the follow-up to Every Dead Thing and it is just as grim, hard-edged and compelling as the first novel. Charlie Parker, who now has his PI license has moved back to his home town of Scarborough, Maine. As a favor to a young woman, Rita, he tries to get some overdue child support from her ex, Billy Purdue. This ends up pitting Parker and his friends Angel and Luis against mobster Tony Celli who is looking for $2 million that Purdue might have heisted during a botched ransom exchange. There's a trail of dead bodies, all of them linked to Purdue's search for his birth parents, a line that stretches from his family to an old woman who kills herself after running away from a nursing home. She claims to have seen Caleb Kyle, a vicious serial killer who hasn't been heard from since Parker's youth. It's this element of the plot that lends a supernatural air to the proceedings (Parker has visions of his dead wife and daughter). "The book opens like a Stephen King novel, with a violent prologue, visions of nameless evil darkening the stars, and the dead past coming alive. Since the novel is set in Maine, it feels like an homage to the master of Pine Tree State horror." The story proceeds to a very violent hunt for the serial killer in the cold North of Maine.
I enjoyed this very compelling novel just as much as I enjoyed the others I have read in the series. I especially like Parker's friends Angel and Luis who on more than one occasion come to Parker's rescue. Angel and Luis are some rather bad and violent characters who are gay; Angel is white and Luis is black. They remind me a lot of another of my favorite series, the Hap and Leonard books written by Joe Lansdale. Leonard is also a very violent gay black man. Anyway, I'll definitely be reading more of these!
Really enjoyed this book - a former police detective, now a PI in Maine, becomes involved in a twisted set of crimes in far northern Maine -the Dark Hollow of the title. He is a person haunted by a number of ghosts - that of his murdered wife and child as well as others from the past and present, and that drives the plot. The writing grabbed me right from the beginning, and the constant plot turns kept me reading eagerly. I could really "see" the action as if it were a movie. In fact, I think this would make a fine movie! The only reason I did not give it 5 stars was that the characters' spoken dialog was a tiny bit trite.
Not bad. A little predictable, though.
I became hooked on John Connolly's books about 6 years ago, during a cold winter spent on the beach in Maine. I read Every Dead Thing and Dark Hollow, and found I was left looking over my shoulder and jumping at old house noises that were normally familiar to me.
I love the Charlie Parker character through out the Parker books his story unfolds, yet you always feel like there are more mysteries of his character to unfold, both good and evil dark and light combine perfectly in one person. Louis and Angel are the most wonderful assasins in fiction,they are lovers, partners in crime and have an amazing code of honor, criminals you root for because their crimes are often though not always for the greater good. Connolly's villians are some of the most scary individuals you can come across, think Randall Flagg from Stephen King, combined with Hannibal Lecter, intelligent, otherworldly and pure evil.
I would say his books are best read in order, and I feel as Connolly has become better acquanted with his characters, his books and characters have grown, each one improving on the next. I don't feel as if he writes books just to fufill his contract.
I keep his books, sorry. But if you like thrillers with a paranormal edge I feel you can't go wrong with John Connolly's books.
Charlie "Bird" Parker is definitely my new favorite series in the field of Suspense Thrillers! Highly recommend!
