The Killing Kind: A Thriller

The first two Charlier Parker novels, by Irish journalist John Connolly, were violent and very disturbing, pocked with gunfire and dead bodies, and visions of horrors from the afterlife. Parker himself is a strange, tortured soul, who can see those who have been killed violently, so that he can't ignore them and return to his quiet life. This third Parker book is even nastier in some ways: the author has managed to make things even more sinister by making the violence more dramatic, more creepy, more hidden.In this installment, Parker's relegated himself to watching wayward husbands and doing boring industrial security work. He imagines that his presence somehow makes violent people worse, or perhaps brings them out of the woodwork. He's patched up his relationship with Rachel and made peace with the world, and now is trying to make ends meet without killing anyone. This reverie is disturbed by Jack Mercier, a retired senator who is wealthy and wishes to hire Parker to investigate a murder. Initially reluctant, Parker becomes engrossed in the case and those who quickly become suspects, largely a strange, reclusive cult of religious fanatics called The Fellowship. They appear outrageous and silly, not particularly dangerous if repugnant in their beliefs (which range from anti-abortion to anti-semitism) and somewhat nuts. Parker suspects something deeper, and soon discovers that he's right.The book travels from there, with a plethora of wonderful characters, from a mob boss to a very different porn producer to a Jewish assassin with no face to a bad guy with a strange fascination for spiders. All are drawn interestingly, with wonderful dialog and mannerisms, and prose that makes you think this might even be poetry. I enjoyed the first two Charlier Parker novels a great deal. This third one isn't anywhere near as violent and bloody as the first two, but given the haunting images that the author paints as he writes his books, the shootouts aren't really needed. Instead, the murky atmosphere almost makes this into a Clive Barker novel, without the supernatural nasties. Instead, your skin crawls from spiders and strange characters who've been killing for decades. For me that's more affecting, not less.

I have a confession to make. I am a murderer. I killed my love for the detctive story by reading too many novels that were just too bad. I never thought I'd appreciate a crime novelist the way I did Ed McBain when I was younger. And then along came John Connolly, creeping up on me, hiding in the shadows, lurking, and then attacking without warning.This is the best crime novel I have read in years, for two reasons. First of all, the language is exquisite. Connolly writes like a poet, and the first few pages where he described the "honeycomb world" is worth the price of the book alone.Second of all, Charlie Parker, the main character. With a dry cynicism as sharp as his wit, he delivers one-liners one after one. I found myself going back to re-read passages many times during the course of this book, for the humour alone. But this is not a funny book, not at all.I won't tell you any more about the story, as it deserves to develop on its own when you read it. Let me just warn you that the ending is not at all as good as the rest of the book, and that did make me sad. The last ten or so pages are standard Hollywood-drama, and lack the originality the reader has been spoiled with during the course of the novel.Still, Connolly pulls it off. "The Killing Kind", approved!

If W.B. Yeats had written crime fiction, it might have looked something like John Connolly's novels. This latest installment in Connolly's Charlie Parker series explores faith, guilt, sorrow and evil. Parker's investigation into the apparent suicide of a graduate student turns up the secret fate of a religious group in Maine, decades earlier; both events are tied to the mysterious and terrifying Mr. Pudd, a character who still haunts me. These books get better and more frightening, even as Parker himself seems to get more comfortable with the hand life has dealt him.

Since I read John Connolly's first novel, EVERY DEAD THING, I've quickly become an avid fan of his. His second book, DARK HOLLOW, confirmed my belief that here was a gifted writer who deserves a much larger "fan" base than he currently has in the United States. Now, having read his third novel in the "Charlie `Bird' Parker" series, I know that this is an author who's on his way to the "bestseller" lists. He's simply that good! Mr. Connolly knows how to create in-depth characters that stand out, weave intricate plots and subplots that keep the reader guessing, and has a style of prose that is almost poetic in its sheer elegance. In THE KILLING KIND, Charlie Parker returns to investigate the death of a young college student, Grace Peltier, and her connection to a religious organization in Maine known as the Fellowship. It seems that she was writing a thesis on small group of religious zealots, the Aroostook Baptists, and their mysterious disappearance in the year of 1963. Her search for information eventually led her to the Fellowship and its founder, Carter Paragon. Shortly there after, she was found in her car alongside a dirt road with a revolver in her hand, a bullet in her head, and a Bible at her side. Grace's father, Curtis Peltier, doesn't believe that his daughter committed suicide, and he wants our New England P.I. to find the killer. As Charlie begins his investigation, however, a mass grave containing the skeletal remains of the Aroostook Baptists is accidentally discovered along a riverbank in northern Maine, and this also seems to be somehow tied in with the Fellowship and Carter Paragon. When Charlie starts to probe a little too deeply into the workings of this supposedly religious organization, Mr. Pudd (a man who is the very essence of evil and loves to kill his victims with deadly spiders) and his mute, female assistant are sent to warn him off the case. Since Charlie has never been one to heed the warnings of other people, he continues to plow ahead and soon people start dropping dead around him. Even when Louis and Angel arrive to offer their help, they prove to be barely a match for our illusive Mr. Pudd, and come to know the true meaning of terror on a first-hand basis. No one will ever be the same again once the evil Mr. Pudd gets his hands on them. THE KILLING KIND carries the writings of John Connolly to a much higher level of expertise than his earlier two novels. Like the first two, it has several plot lines coming from different directions that join together into a smoothly written, utterly satisfying ending. Both the familiar and new characters in the book ring true to the ear, especially the terrifying Mr. Pudd and the Jewish assassin known only as the Golem. Mr. Connolly has a remarkable skill in being able to create killers that stand out in ways other authors can only dream about. That's one of the things that make this series so much fun to read. Another aspect is the main character of Charlie P