The Lovers: A Thriller

i have every one of john connollys books. they are simply the best...if you like mystery with some horror a little funny and dark then these charlie parker books are for you too!

I did something last night that I haven't done in a long time on a work night - stayed up until I finished my book even though I knew I would hate life in the morning on the way to work. In fact, I pretty much read this book all day once I took care of the unimportant stuff like pancakes, groceries, & procrastinating doing the laundry. This isn't a surprise, though. John Connolly's books are just that good. This is the latest in his Charlie Parker series wherein Charlie learns some truths about his father's suicide & his own parentage. As always, Charlie is violence haunted & cursed, fumbling in the darkness for something that remains as unknown to himself as it is to his readers. This was a wonderful book with the tight plotting, great characterization, & beautiful writing that you expect from a Connolly book. I especially appreciate how well he fleshes out even minor characters, like the Fulci brothers. Angel & Louis, his two closest friends, make a brief appearance here - I find I miss them terribly & hope they'll be back in the next book. People frequently comment on the paranormal happenings in these books & I always have to pause & think about that ("Are there paranormal things in this book?"). The pause is because Connolly makes these happenings a normal part of life - the only person other than Neil Gaiman who manages that as well as he does. These are also among the only books that have given me nightmares as an adult (in company with Alan Moore's Watchmen - good company, indeed). Connolly also happens to put words together beautifully. There are parts of Dark Hollow that are so achingly beautiful you want to cry from reading them. If you haven't read these books, what are you waiting for? Get going!

It's hard to classify or pigeonhole John Connolly. You could say he writes mysteries, or thrillers, or horror novels, and you would be right on all counts. He has this magnificent series of books featuring a private investigator named Charlie Parker, who has been doing a deadly dance with some frighteningly evil people for over a decade now. THE LOVERS is the ninth of these works --- 10 if you want to count BAD MEN, on account of Parker's brief cameo --- and it shines new light on what has gone before while setting things up for future books in the series. It will also occasionally scare the heck out of you. Parker writes in a more literary style than most of his contemporaries, so that one is put in the mind of Dickens, Poe, or Collins when reading his books. However, Parker is very much in the here and now. When a character walks into a coffee shop and a CD by The Pixies is playing, there is no question you are in the 21st century. Much of THE LOVERS, however, concerns Parker's past. He is at a low point as the novel opens, having lost his PI license, his concealed carry permit, and, as we will see, one of his best friends. Marking time by tending bar, he uses his involuntary retirement to begin an investigation into his own background. Parker's father was a well-liked New York cop who murdered two teenagers in cold blood before taking his own life. Parker begins checking into the circumstances behind the killings, even as he initiates a query into his own parentage. What Parker finds is that everything he knows about himself is wrong, and that the people he knew as his parents, though flawed, were possessed in their separate ways with more strains of decency and charity than he ever could have guessed. Of more significance for Parker, however, is that from the moment of his conception --- and before --- he and those whom he loves have been pursued by a shadowy, seemingly indestructible couple obsessed with eradicating him. Worse, it appears that they are on the verge of making another run at him, one that seems to have every chance of succeeding. As always, Parker has allies; his friends Angel and Louis are there to help, as well as others, including two of the most important people in or out of Parker's world. Connolly's pacing throughout is exquisite, as Parker's past is slowly revealed to him, and his true friends and enemies reveal themselves. Connolly is not hesitant to continue detonating a bombshell or two even after things are apparently brought to a close, so that your ears will still be ringing and your eyes watering long after you read the final paragraph. If you are new to Charlie Parker, THE LOVERS is a perfect place to jump on. You can spend the next year catching up on Connolly's backlist in anticipation of the next installment. I am almost positive that I know where he is going with this, which means I probably will be wrong. One thing for sure, however, is that, as brilliant as he has been to date, Connolly is just warmin

"The Lovers" is Connolly's latest installment of his Charlie Parker series. For those loyal readers who have wondered about Charlie's background and how it might relate and animate his life as a private investigator, paranormal sleuth, and magnet for supernatural enigmas, many answers and a few more questions appear and are examined in this very focused effort. "The Lovers" is a very personal examination of Parker's background as he begins seeking the answers to festering questions about his past. It is different from past installments as most of Parker's recurring characters and support network are reduced to cameos (much as he was in "The Reapers") and it is left to Charlie to carry the storyline and action through his persistent and unrelenting investigation that seeks the truth to his father's suicide after apparently killing a young couple who were not armed. Old wounds are reopened and new wounds are discovered--many of which ultimately explain some recurring elements in the Parker series and others which open new story lines. There may be very few signature characters in the thriller genre that are as complex, as powerful, yet as vulnerable as Charlie Parker. This reader is never disappointed in the complexity and the credibilty of Connolly's plotting, detailed storylines, and breathless pacing. The author is a master of establishing mood and motivation through the psychological maneuverings of his characters and his readers. Connolly's work is at once atmospheric, moody, dark and disturbing--yet compelling and hard to put down. His prose is sometimes so lyrical and so defining that I find myself rereading a sentence or paragraph just to marvel at his styling. He can establish mood, a sense of disquiet, peril, or supernatural unease with a few well turned phrases. And his ability to build suspense and an impending sense of doom that is almost palpable to the reader is extraordinary. I highly recommend this series to those attracted to intense, pyschologically intricate, suspense thrillers.

'There is no moral phenomenon at all, only moral interpretation of phenomena.' It can be said that Charlie Parker is at it again. This time though the investigation is focused inward. Mister Parker has been removed from his Private Investigator's license and is investigating personal history. Virgin territory here: the past has been suggested in other volumes but only as reference to evolving supernatural mystery. Events always seem to frame ever present guilt; and always inside the agony involved in rewinding violent memories of the past. Mister Parker has wandered off road and is discovering the origins of his early life. Add to panoplies of lies and deceit the shadowy presence of a pairing of individuals with evil intent and you have the makings of more of the same masterful blend of mystery and crime and supernatural suspense. To reveal more of the story than necessary would affect the thrill of discovery. And we don't need any of that.

With his private investigator's license revoked (see THE REAPERS), Charlie Parker leaves New York City to tend bar in Portland, Maine. The job gives him time think about the other tragedy in his life besides the murders of his wife and daughter that haunts him. When Charlie was fifteen, his father Will an NYPD cop shot dead two teens, who after he kills them learns they were unarmed. Unable cope, Will committed suicide. As Charlie digs into the background of that traumatic incident, he finds some shocking evidence that makes him wonder if his beloved parents were his biological ones. He decides to return to Manhattan to investigate and avoid the police. At the same time a frightened disturbed woman is on the run from whatever killed her boyfriend. Writer Mickey Wallace investigates the stranger that haunt the Big Apple; as this pair converge on Charlie, two of the undying also come together wanting Parker dead. Charlie's focus remains on his personal life, but spins to what happened to his father rather than himself. He is at his best as he begins to uncover shocker after shocker as if someone has connected his body to live electrical wires (see the Cheney torture handbook for more details). He makes the LOVERS a great urban Noir fantasy although the paranormal is kept to the minimal. Readers will relish his escapades as Charlie investigates his father's suicide while the undying want to give him an opportunity to question dad in whatever hell the dead old man resides in. Harriet Klausner