Helpful Score: 6
I found "Dark Hollow" filled with suspense and hard to put down. The author, John Connolly, really has 2 stories going on in this book. There's mystery, suspense, well rounded characters, a twisting plot and a likable main character. Charlie Parker is a somewhat psychic private detective who manages to pursue cases of some of the most wicked characters in literature. The wicked person here is Caleb Kyle, a scary sadist whose eyes are filled with evil. The plot is intricate but not too much. Enough to enjoy the surprises along the way as Charlie and friends, Angel and Louis, battle the mob, ignorant rednecks and assassins.
Helpful Score: 3
What a mess! Takes forever to get into the story then you have to have description after description after description about everything, every character has to have a background history and none of this applies to the main story, it was just so messy.
Helpful Score: 2
very spooky,a little to much blood for my liking
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
great horror read
Not bad. A little predictable, though.
was exceptional new author for me, i have ordered two more
of his books after reading this one.
of his books after reading this one.
Charlie "Bird" Parker is definitely my new favorite series in the field of Suspense Thrillers! Highly recommend!
Wow! Liked it a lot.
The second installment in the Charlie âBirdâ Parker series. Another involving, gruesome story. Didn't think it was as good as âEvery Dead Thingâ but still a cut above your average murder/thriller.
While I have immensely enjoyed two other Connolly novels, this one wasn't quite as engrossing. The plot was surprising, but I just can't rate this one as high as his others. I hope that his next book, The Killing Kind, recaptures some of this lost magic.
Outstanding story and interest.
from Publishers Weekly---"Grim, hard-edged and compulsively readable"
Haunted by the murder of his wife and daughter, former New York police detective Charlie Parker retreats home to Scarborough, Maine, to rebuild his shattered life. But his return reawakens old ghosts, drawing him into the manhunt for the killer of yet another mother and child. The obvious suspect is the young woman's violent ex-husband. But there is another possibility-a mythical killer who lurks deep in the dark hollow of Parker's own past, a figure that has haunted his family for generations: the monster known as Caleb Kyle....
Haunted by the murder of his wife and daughter, former New York police detective Charlie Parker retreats home to Main to rebuild his shattered life. But his return reawakens old ghosts, drawing him into the manhunt for the killer of yet another mother and child.
I'm the pickiest reader alive, and I never post a book I didn't like!
New York Police detective Charlie Parker retreats to Maine to escape his wife's death and rebuild his life. He uncovers dark secrets from his past, and a figure who has haunted his family for generations...
