The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on June 12, 2018

Few writers of suspense novels care more about language than John Connolly. He marries eloquent prose to the poetry of the street. He also imbues his characters with extraordinary depth, and imbues the (relatively speaking) good characters with extraordinary humanity. Or maybe he simply gives them ordinary humanity, which seems extraordinary in a time when so many people have forgotten how to care about members of the human race who differ in race or ethnicity or religion or sexuality or politics.

A fellow named Dobey who shelters troubled women in a dismal place called Cadillac, Indiana receives a visit from Quayle, accompanied by a woman who goes by the name Padilla Mors, her real name having been lost to history. Mors is “death’s personification,” as she demonstrates repeatedly during the course of the novel.

Quayle is searching for Karis Lamb, one of the unfortunate women Dobey has assisted, who told Dobey she was running from the devil himself. Meanwhile, Karis (who happens to be dead) is talking to a kid named Daniel Weaver on Daniel’s toy phone. She wants Daniel to join her in the woods. Daniel understandably believes that’s not a good plan, as does Charlie Parker’s dead daughter Jennifer, who hopes to guide him on a safer path.

As readers know from other novels in the series, Quayle is trying to reconstruct something called the Fractured Atlas, which will “reorder the world in its image,” beginning with the return of the Not-Gods. Quayle is at odds with a powerful group of men who support the Buried God in what they perceive to be an upcoming clash with the Not-Gods, because reconstructing the Fractured Atlas is likely to turn the world to fire and ash, which isn’t good for anyone, except possibly the Not-Gods. I’m not sure what any of that means, but it’s pretty spooky.

As that plot unfolds, Parker deals with the aftermath of his buddy Louis’ decision to blow up a pickup truck that was decorated with Confederate flags (in Maine, of all places). Blowing it up might have been an overreaction, but Louis’ lover Angel is facing death and Louis was having a bad day. The scenes in which Louis contemplates and dreads the loss of Angel are deeply moving. They are some of Connolly’s finest work although really, it’s all good. Connolly is incapable of writing a graceless sentence.

I’m generally not a fan of supernatural themes, but Connolly always ties his fiction to the corporeal world — in this book, to abused women, a more tangible horror than ghosts and demons. In a time when (as Parker observes) rage, intolerance, and ignorance are worn as a badge of pride, reading a Charlie Parker novel is a civilizing experience. Evil plagues Parker, not just in supernatural manifestations, but in humans who believe that their skin color or sexual identity or religious affiliations are a mark of moral superiority. A good many Americans agree with Parker’s belief in tolerance and equality, but too many others pollute the nation with their ignorant remarks and vile actions.

I wouldn’t recommend The Woman in the Woods to readers who haven’t read the last few Charlie Parker novels, because they work together as a continuing story. I recommend the series as a whole to fans of exquisite prose who can deal with disturbing themes, because each one is better than the last.

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