Book reviews: John Connolly shows again why he’s the best in the crime business
Plus: it’s been worth the wait for Edna O’Brien's The Little Red Chairs and John Williams' cult classic Stoner to make it into audiobook
by John Connolly (read by Jeff Harding)
Hodder & Stoughton
(e-book)
5/5 stars
I never tire of saying that John Connolly is, to my mind, the best crime writer in the business. His prose offers lessons in how excitement, unease, violence, lyricism, humour and melancholy can mix, all spiced with dashes of horror. Take this early description of Connolly’s latest villain, Roger Ormsby: “But when he closed his front door behind him the artificial light in his eyes was suffocated, and the face of the Gray Man was pendent like a dead moon in the blackness of his pupils.” Connolly’s bad men tend to be bad-evil or evil-lurking-within-seeming-good. If Ormsby is the latter in its nastiest form, his counterpart, Jerome Burnel, offers a more illusory version: a man accused of the worst crimes who stubbornly protests his innocence. This understandably attracts Charlie Parker, Connolly’s increasingly daunting hero, who treads his own fine line between guilt and innocence. There is still plenty of humour, thanks to Parker’s bickering sidekicks, Angel and Louis, but the mood is darkening: his quest to solve his family’s murder; the presence of his daughter’s ghost. The only downside is the wait for Parker episode 15. Extras: a limited edition version with accompanying music compilation.
by Edna O’Brien (read by Juliet Stevenson)