DARK HOLLOW
by John Connolly
I wish I’d written this ...
... because I love the subtle use of the supernatural!
The first Charlie Parker novel was fantastic, though perhaps a little over-written. The second corrects that slight fault. Brilliantly paced, it begins slowly, gradually picks up speed, and ends with a terrifically exciting shoot-out. Through the course of the narrative, Parker’s character is explored, and he’s made flesh, much more a real and living man than the two-dimensional protagonists found in so many other thrillers. John Connolly’s greatest feat though is to introduce a villain so repellent, so creepy, and so soulless that he can’t possibly be forgotten … and to then present another who’s even worse! It’s truly remarkable. What I’ve really come to love about this series, though, is the perfectly pitched supernatural element, which might just be an aspect of Parker’s fractured psyche … or might not be. In every way, this is a superb novel and I can hardly wait to read the third in the series.
From the publisher
A young woman, Rita Ferris, and her little son die at the hands of an unknown killer, and the past and present collide violently for Charlie Parker.
Still raw from the brutal slayings of his wife and daughter, and the events surrounding the hunt for their killer, the Traveling Man, Parker has retreated to the wintry Maine landscapes of his youth. But his return reawakens the ghosts of the past, forcing him to join the hunt for Billy Purdue, Rita's ex-husband and the chief suspect in the slayings.
As the death toll mounts, it becomes clear that someone else is hunting for Billy Purdue, someone who seems to know Parker almost as well as he knows himself, and that the true answer to the puzzle lies thirty years in the past; in a tree with strange fruit; in the troubled history of Parker's own grandfather; and in the violent origins of a mythical killer: the monster known only as Caleb Kyle.
