Starred review from March 26, 2007
In this scary, cerebral thriller from bestseller Connolly, his fifth to feature world-weary Maine PI Charlie Parker (after 2005's The Black Angel
), Parker is haunted by the ghosts of his wife and daughter, who died under mysterious circumstances that left him guilt-ridden. Parker is drawn again into the darkest recesses of human nature when a new client, Rebecca Clay, retains him to protect her against a menacing stalker, Frank Merrick, who believes Rebecca knows the whereabouts of her father, Daniel, a child psychiatrist who vanished years before. Merrick suspects Daniel knows the truth about the fate of his own young daughter, whom Daniel treated and who disappeared without a trace while Merrick was incarcerated. Connolly is a master of suggestion, creating mood and suspense with ease, and unflinchingly presents a hard-eyed look at the horrors that can lurk in quiet, rustic settings. 12-city author tour.
June 25, 2007
Of the few novelists who manage to combine the private eye and horror genres successfully, none does it better than Connolly. Here he gives his hapless hero, Charlie Parker, a man obsessed with the memory of the gruesome murders of his wife and daughter, a particularly disturbing case involving child predators and killers. It’s a grim story, including the reappearance of a Parker foe, the sinister and probably supernatural Collector who is drawn to “certain crimes” from which he extracts keepsakes. Sanders has the right kind of vocal timbre to suggest Parker’s tough–but–soul sick protagonist and the skill to give the gritty material a properly noir tone. As for the Collector, whom Connelly tells us “tastes words like unfamiliar food,” Sanders conjures up a raspy whisper that carries more than the hint of a distaste for life. It also contains an echo of Parker’s voice, which follows the author’s suggestion that the Collector may be a specter of the detective’s imagination. In any case, the sound, like the novel itself, is as unnerving as a fever dream. Simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 26).