#Review - The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

The Nameless Ones (Charlie Parker, 22)
John Connolly
Hodder & Stoughton, 8 July 2021
Available as: HB, 388pp, audio, e
Source: Audio subscription and purchased HB
ISBN(HB): 9781529398342

In some respects, The Nameless Ones doesn't need a review beyond "It's a new Charlie Parker by John Connolly!"

But I'm still going to write one because I want to explain - I want to try to understand myself - why this very dark book enthralled me so much.

First I should say that The Nameless Ones is focussed on Angel and Louis, Parker's friends (and hired muscle). Parker himself is only peripherally involved, but that's OK - for me Angel and Louis are always a highlight of any book they appear in and it was great so see them and to follow their loving, bickering relationship as they take a trip to Europe.

That's where the darkness comes in. Early on in the book there is a particularly gruesome multiple murder - Connolly spares us the graphic details - the victims of which include De Jaager, who we met in earlier books and who helped Parker, Angel and Louis. That proves his downfall, as it brought him up against a gang of Serbian war-criminals, people smugglers and gangsters who want revenge.

But two can play at that game. Louis and Angel set out to get revenge on the revengers.

What follows is a complex, cat and mouse chase across Europe. Much of the action focuses on Spiridon and Radovan Vuksan, the Serbian gangsters and war criminals who had been operating in the Netherlands but now wish to return home. There's a complicated, content-wide web of intrigue drawing in politicians who now wish to appear clean, a money-laundering lawyer, terrorists and various associates of the Vuksans who now just want a quiet life. The whole thing has the air of an exposé, drawing out the links between crime and exploitation and the apparently innocent to show how money talks, always and how blind eyes can be turned, for one reason or another, to the most egregious crimes.

Against this network, and against time as the Vuksans negotiate to return back to Serbia and safety, even Angel and Louis seem outmatched. And that's even before we detect a whiff of the uncanny in the Vuksans' camp. But as we know, it doesn't do to underestimate Angel and Louis.

I really enjoyed The Nameless Ones. It was a little different from previous Charlie Parker books I'd read in not being driven by the supernatural (although last year's The Dirty South was similar in that respect) but that doesn't mean the sense of suffocating, malevolent and active evil was lacking, oh no. Indeed, the Vuksans' capricious and apparently boundless capacity for harm almost appears graver for having no origin in any wider scheme or purpose than to gratify their own various lusts and troglodytic self-image. And of course it's clear that their actions are closely rooted in reality, making the picture drawn here darker still.

And yet that darkness doesn't make the book off-putting. Rather, the minutiae of Angel's and Louis' relationship, their acerbic comments on a grim world, coupled with Connolly's looping, interpretive narrative, makes every word a joy to read (or to listen to - I enjoyed the first three quarters of the book on audio, Jeff Harding's melodious voice catching all the nuances of the many characters here, but switched to the hardback because I needed to know NOW how things turned out). There was also time given to Jennifer, Parker's daughter, and her relationship with the living world, which slightly filled out - for me - the sense of a wider shared world and meant that Parker isn't, completely, left out of things.

Overall, then, this was more of a straight thriller than some of the recent books - but still not completely so, and WHAT A THRILLER.

I'd strongly recommend. 

For more information about The Nameless Ones, see the publisher's website here.

 

#Review - The Dirty South by John Connolly

The Dirty South (Charlie Parker)
John Connolly
Hodder & Stoughton, 20 August 2020
Available as: HB, 470pp, e, audio
Source: HB bought from Goldsboro Books
ISBN: 9781529398298

The Dirty South is one of those books published in 20202 that I ought to have got to last year but didn't (it was 2020, after all...) It's out in PB on 1 April - and definitely one to look forward to. 

As somebody who only started reading the Charlie Parker series three or four books back, and so isn't up on all the continuity, it was good to be able to read this relatively standalone prequel, set before Every Dead Thing. Parker is already on the hunt for the killer of his wife and daughter, a quest which takes him to the town of Cargill in Arkansas, where young Black women are being murdered in a particularly grisly, staged way.

Cargill is a poor, dead-end town effectively ruled by the Cade family. The Cades have plans for the place - they want to lure a Government contractor to build a research centre, attracting good jobs and lucrative contracts. Nothing must be allowed to impede this, especially not bad publicity about the deaths of a few Black girls. Jarel Cade, the country sheriff, will make sure of it...

Bringing Parker head too head with a world of corruption and wrongness is not new for Connolly. However The Dirty South stands out in a number of ways. 

First, this isn't - quite - Parker as we know him. At first he's focussed on nothing more then revenge, so when he concludes that these killings aren't related to his family tragedy, he shakes the dust off his feet and drives away. But not for long. Through this book one can see Parker watching, processing, judging, examining the grief and guilt of those around him and - in the end - deciding to help. 

Also, this isn't a book overtly about supernatural evil (though there are some hints about the Karagol, that dark lake from which the town is named). But it remains a book about evil. Connolly is as adept as ever at conveying evil and corruption - which certainly are to be found here - and accordingly The Dirty South seems at times to weep taint, it's as though Parker is prodding and squeezing a decaying corpse, watching the humours leech out. There is almost a physicality to the evil that is exposed - the corruption reaching out tendrils to local politics, including the State capital and politicians, as well as to souls. 

All that is wrapped though round a fiendishly difficult police procedural (for certain values of procedure - the Cargill Police Department and its Chief, Evander Griffin, are short of resources and support so a lot of what they do is rather... improvised). The investigation takes in cold cases, past corruption and incompetence and a firm desire to look the other way. It all makes for a tense, engaging read with an explosive conclusion.

Of course there are familiar features here: I don't think Connolly is capable of writing dialogue that isn't smart and on the nose, or of deploying villains who don't give off that feeling I mentioned before, that sense of moral taint, of dirt, and this book shows that off brilliantly. We meet a variety of compromised figures, from bent police to corporate fixers to those who dance to their own dark and secret desires. All are too, too credible.

I would strongly recommend, whether you're a long term reader of this series or whether you'd like a place to get into it. (And - we get an explanation of Parker's name. No, he's not named after the jazz musician).

For more information about The Dirty South see the publisher's website here.

 

Review - A Book of Bones by John Connelly

A Book of Bones (Charlie Parker, 17)
John Connolly
Hodder & Stoughton, 18 April 2019
HB, 707pp, e-book

I'm grateful to the publisher for sending me a free advance copy of A Book of Bones for review.

As if to prove this series is a long way from losing steam, with the 17th Charlie Parker thriller - and marking 20 years as an author - In A Book of Bones John Connolly gives us a double length (700 pages!) adventure for Charlie, Angel, Louis and many of his wider cast. Not only that, but in this book themes from several recent novels come together. And it also contains what's basically an entire police procedural featuring two new (but believable, likeable) characters.

Finally, in an Afterword, Connolly reveals the background to the publication of his first book, Every Dead Thing, in 1997.

So A Book of Bones is a great gift to the readers - a bumper helping of Charlie Parker, but also an ambitious novel at a point where the temptation must be to rest on the oars and let the momentum carry things forward. That's maybe something of a risk.

Who, we might ask, are this pair of detectives, Gackowska and Hynes, investigating the murder of young teacher Romana Moon on a lonely moor in Northumberland, half a world away from Parker's usual hunting grounds in the USA?

Who are the other voices we hear?

How does everything join up?

If it is a risk, it's amply justified as Connolly delivers a complex and interesting novel that engages from the very start when we see Parker, called in to advise on a killing in a New Mexico junkyard, presented almost as our guide to the inferno that seems be looming, the junkyard "descending in a series of declivities to a massive pit at its heart, where Parker glimpsed a fire burning." If you're a longtime reader of this series you will I think regard Parker - even an older Parker, a damaged Parker - as a sure guide through this territory. And so it proves. In a world polluted, tainted, walking among moral hazards, temptations and threats, Charlie Parker, who has endured much, can still be relied upon.

We know from the ending of The Woman in the Woods that Parker is hunting down sinister lawyer Quayle and his murderous henchwoman Pallid Mors. The pair are formidable adversaries, so things seem set for a confrontation, a battle royal. But the book is actually more subtle than that. There is a great deal here, and it would be silly to list all or, or even most, of the threads - and probably spoilery to try, since, however circumspect one thinks one is being, the combination would give too much away. I will say that A Book of Bones skilfully explores different sorts of evil, and the relationship between them - not just flashy, supernatural evil but the mundane sort. Some of its most effective writing in this book (and it is also the most grim reading) portrays the actions and motivations of the evildoers in this book and, often, the sheet casualness of it all ("Oh, and he'd started killing women: there was that as well.")

Unpicking it all, Parker seems to be peeling back layer after later of corruption (of pollution, as someone observes at one point) moral, legal, and financial; historical and modern, and revealing the strands that connect present day misogyny and male entitlement ("That was the way women were... They were conniving, always looking for the advantage. You had to teach them their place...") to both modern centres of power and influence (whether in London, or Boston,where the Colonial Club looms again) and the warped - polluted - cults of the past.

The hunt ranges geographically, taking in many parts of England, where women's bodies are being dumped at ancient sacred sites (it was a shock that one was just up the road from me: I see Wittenham Clumps daily on the skyline as I walk my dogs) and the Netherlands, where Angel has bloody history. It also plays games with time, giving us documents, histories and accounts from over the past few centuries, all part of the fractured narrative that will climax in the modern(?) London of Quayle.

This is, as I've said, grim at times, but thankfully Connolly doesn't just give us 700 pages of darkness. There is hope here too - flawed but ultimately brave people standing against the darkness, for example that police duo again delving into grim realities, unaware of any supernatural connection  (though we are, as various pieces of weirdness are exposed) but simply trying to bring some order and justice to the world. They offset Parker's much less orthodox enquiries, supported by his ragtag crew and even his iffy connection with FBI Agent Ross. (What's going on with Ross? I can't quite put my finger on it...)

It's a complex, doubled, story. Parker, we know, is hunting Quayle and Quayle knows this. But Quayle has other irons in the fire as well. Exactly what he's up to - and thus, how one might stop him - only emerges slowly, because, for the longer part of this book, Parker hasn't joined up what is going on. We, the readers, know much more than Parker about what Quayle's planning, about his tools, his history.

Through all that - from Miss Moon's agony at the start of the book to an... unravelling... at the end - there is a repeated focus on other possibilities, other outcomes, other potential worlds, foreseen by characters for themselves or others ("He could see her sadness, and a future where he was no longer in her life...") or moments when things change forever, closing down choices and alternatives ("'I'm coming' says Soter. And is damned.'")

Choices matter, from a countryman who stokes up his fire against the prowling spirit of wood and leaf worshiped by Parker's old adversaries the Familists: "Because all wood fears the flame" to an ex soldier who falls in with what he knows is the wrong company. But can they be reworked, undone, on a larger scale? Quayle certainly thinks so, which is why he is chasing down a certain ancient Atlas which has the power to make and remake the world according to those alternatives. Quayle and his associate Pallid Mors have killed for this before and will do so again, in their different styles. Quayle, a figure who seems to haunt the centuries - "After a time, it became difficult to distinguish between memory and dreaming" - is a most clear eyed but almost regretful killer, Mors an enthusiast who seems to enjoy causing pain.

All of this builds on the world that Connolly has built, the characters he has developed, across his whole series. That's a lot of background, though you don't need to have read them all to appreciate this book, but this book is about more than background, it has its own focus, its own themes, its own darkness, and if that is a risk then - by not taking the safe option - A Book of Bones succeeds triumphantly. It carries Parker's story forward to new places (literally) and shows that this series has a great deal of life in it yet (as well as deaths, of course. I lost count of the deaths).

An absorbing book, a book whose pages one can simply get lost in - and one I'd strongly recommend.

Review - The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly

Cover photo by Susan Derges

The Woman in the Woods (Charlie Parker)
John Connolly
Hodder, 5 April 2018
HB, 467pp

It is spring, and the semi-preserved body of a young Jewish woman is discovered buried in the Maine woods. It is clear that she gave birth shortly before her death.

But there is no sign of a baby...

I'm grateful to Kerry at Hodder for an advance copy of The Woman in the Woods.

I'm a latecomer to Connolly's Charlie Parker thrillers, having read my first, A Game of Ghosts, last year, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I discovered that there's a good back catalogue of these books which - for now - I'm saving up for those days when you just need a book you can get lost in with no fuss, no doubts. And even better, that there's an enthusiastic body of fans out there for the books - which is always a good sign. So, if you haven't read them yet, jump in and start. I think The Woman in the Woods is a great place to do that, but you could equally begin at the beginning.

So, what's The Woman in the Woods about? I found as I read it that lines of the Easter hymn "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded" kept running through my mind: "Death's pallid hue comes o'er Thee/  The glow of life decays..."

Parker's latest case sees him in a race against time, trying to find a missing child and solve the mystery of a woman's death before... others... can. Death, that pale rider, is ever present, in the person of Parker's rivals, especially Pallida Mors, sidekick to mysterious, dapper Englishman abroad Quayle, but also in a more general sense: Connolly continually tells us that Death is circling, that Death dances and rhymes, and indeed we see His (or Her) quirks and cruelties in the swathe that Quayle and More cut through bystanders and witnesses as they close in on their goal.

As well as following Parker we see this other couple of investigators press on, and I can safely say they're two of the most repellant fictional characters I've encountered in my recent reading. And, be warned, they don't hold back in trying to find what they want. It would be better if Parker got there first - far better. But getting ahead of a pair of killers who will torture and murder anyone who gets in the way proves tricky.

Behind this chase is a deeper mystery. Precisely what are Mors and Quayle seeking? How does it relate to the supernatural threats Parker has encountered before? Most of all, who is the Pale Child who seems to accompany them, and are they aware of it?

On a more prosaic level, Parker has his own problems - while Louis's partner Angel recovers from surgery, he's at a bit of loose end and gets into trouble. Connolly uses the book to explore themes of extremism, delicately linking up boorish, in-your-face racists; closet haters who avoid using the N-word but practice discrimination behind corporate facades; and genteel oligarchs whose poised manners and money-crusted clubs depend on the sweat of those they consider inferior. There's a delicate counterpoint - and many crossovers - between these worlds and the various cultists, devotees of dark gods and searchers after forbidden knowledge that Parker comes up against. It's all laced with portents of the end and blood-curdling prophesies of what will follow: Quayle thinks his work will be done then and he can die, Mors doesn't want to survive him.

This could make for very grim reading.

Except.

Connolly gives us the light as well as the dark.

There is a network devoted to providing refuge for women escaping male violence (Parker is very aware of the ubiquity of male violence). Some of its nodes are visible, some underground. All are vulnerable to the revenge seeking male, yet, to adapt a phrase, "they persist".

There is Moxie Castin, Parker's frequent client, who reads of a woman's body, found in the woods, and sets Parker to investigate, simply as a good deed.

There are others - little candles in a dark world, but casting light, all the same.

I've recently heard this mode described (albeit more in outright fantasy) as "hopepunk", that is, fiction which emphasis the small stands we can all take against the darkness. It's an apt phrase, i think, for what we see here. Parker himself takes such a stand. And while he may be up against formidable enemies, he has allies, too.

On another plane entirely, despite the darkness here, the possible grimness is relieved by Connolly's writing. Smart, sharp and deadpan in tone, not without humour, it's a perfectly paced slice of noir that never slips into noirish parody. Almost every page has an example one could quote - just picking one at random, how about "Parker left the church at the final blessing, trailed by the rest of a congregation consisting mainly of those older than himself. He hadn't managed to bring the average age down by much, just enough to make a statistical difference." The characters are also well realised, partly, I think, the result of many being developed by Connolly over the series of books. But even the newcomers and those just passing through (or who don't make it through...) benefit from being in a well-imagined, well-developed setting.

So despite a trail of blood, it's far from being a conventional horror where everyone is, in the end, going to Hell - though a few of these characters are definitely headed that way. Rather, it's a perfect example of supernatural crime/ horror/ thriller that just works, one every level.

Buy this book, sit down, and meet Charlie Parker...

For more information about the book, the publisher's page is here.