A Game of Ghosts by John Connolly

First published in Great Britain in 2017; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on July 4, 2017

A Game of Ghosts advances and, to an extent, brings to an end subplots that have forming in recent Charlie Parker novels. Familiar names or entities relating to those subplots include the Collector, the lawyer Eldritch, and the Brethren.

There are more ghosts than usual in this Charlie Parker novel. Charlie’s daughter Sam is still visited by the ghost of her half-sister Jennifer. Tobey Thayer foresees death, sometimes in the form of ghosts. Mike MacKinnon disappeared after seeing ghosts, and now his son Alex has seen one, portending the arrival of evil in his home. Other characters see or become ghosts as the novel progresses.

Charlie Parker is now on the government payroll as a private contractor. FBI Agent Ross has assigned him to find a private investigator named Jaycob Eklund who, like Parker, is a private FBI asset. Eklund has dropped off the radar.

The Brethren have taken note of Eklund and of a man named Routh, also known as the Cousin. Routh and Thayer are both connected to Eklund. Those connections furnish Parker’s link to evil, both mortal and supernatural, as Parker and his two associates, Angel and Louis, work their way through a trail of dead bodies while trying to find a living person who might know what happened to Eklund. The mystery puts Parker in the middle of an intriguing power struggle between a widow and her son.

As always, John Connolly writes with an abundance of style and flair. The story moves quickly. The plot is a bit less engaging than some other Parker novels, in part because Connolly seems have used A Game of Ghosts to tie up some of the dangling subplots that he advanced in earlier novels. For that reason, this novel focuses less on unraveling a mystery and more on the supernatural elements that always lurk in a Parker novel.

Given that Parker’s dead daughter is a ghostly character in these novels, and that his living daughter seems to have supernatural powers, there’s little doubt that the supernatural will continue to play an important role in the series. Now that the Brethren plotline is largely resolved, I’d like to see the novels give less emphasis to supernatural elements, because I think Parker novels are best when Parker is hunting down a killer or some other evildoer. Parker doesn’t do much of anything in A Game of Ghosts as he’s usually a half step behind the evildoers, who often hog the stage. Still, A Game of Ghosts is an easy, enjoyable read, and it paves the way for fresh plots in future novels.

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A Time of Torment by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on August 2, 2016

Jerome Burnell’s life was destroyed because he stopped for gas at the wrong place and time. Years later, after being released from prison, Burnell’s first phone call is to Charlie Parker. Burnell is on parole as a registered sex offender who possessed child porn, an offense he has always denied.

Burnell had once been a hero, having saved lives by killing two thugs. He thinks he was set up for the child porn charges for reasons that are related to his killings. Two women whose lives he saved have disappeared and he fears that their fates were also dictated by his act of heroism. Burnell, who never considered himself a hero, hopes that Parker can find the truth. He’s also concerned that a thug who tortured him in prison while speaking of the “Dead King” is also a free man, free to resume the torture.

A related plot thread involves a cultish group of people who live in a part of the Appalachians known as the Cut. The group has a long history of terror. Most county residents outside the Cut find that ignoring that history is the safest way to live.

Can Parker assure Burnell’s safety? Who or what is the Dead King? (Hint: we’re not talking Elvis.) What’s up with the evil residents of the Cut? John Connolly answers some of these questions quickly, but only by giving birth to new questions. Others take longer to resolve. You’ll need to read the book to get the answers.

And I do recommend that you read it, at least if you don’t mind the addition of a supernatural flavor to your thriller stew. The story becomes creepier as it moves along and a few of the scenes are graphically gruesome, so if you are easily disturbed, you will probably want to avoid the book (and most others in the series). On the other hand, if you like thrillers mixed with horror stories that benefit from literary prose style and strong character development, Connolly is the author for you. His prose is so fluid, and his story-telling skills so strong, that it’s difficult to stop reading his books.

Having said that, I will also say that A Time of Torment is less original than some other novels in the series. The plot moves in predictable directions, although Connolly adds rich detail and interpersonal conflicts that add to the story’s interest. Basing the story on an evil cult with a vague connection to the supernatural just seems too easy, given the creative complexity that Connolly brought to earlier Charlie Parker novels. The Dead King is a pedestrian device forced into the plot for the sake of harnessing evil actions to an incarnate evil force. That’s one of Connolly’s recurring themes, but it didn’t work for me here, although I liked the twisted explanation of the Dead King that Connolly saves for the final pages.

What did work are secondary characters, like a local sheriff with a heart condition and two female victims who refuse to behave like victims. And despite the book’s darkness, unexpected one-liners by Louis and Angel (Charlie’s instruments of death) made me laugh. There are always plenty of reasons to recommend a Charlie Parker book, even if the book, like A Time of Torment, is one of the lesser entries in the series.

One final note: The story sets in play what will likely be an ongoing storyline involving Parker’s living daughter. I think there are already enough ongoing storylines in this series (The Collector and the Gray Man and the ghosts of Parker’s wife and daughter all pop up in this novel); I think it might be overkill to add another.

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Night Music by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 6, 2015

Night Music is the second volume of Nocturnes, collecting John Connolly’s short horror fiction. In fact, it collects every short story Connolly has written since the first volume was published in 2004.

Two of my favorite stories concern a peculiar library. A man who is eased into retirement after the death of his mother sees a woman throw herself in front of a train, but since no body or blood can be found, the police suspect that isolation and loneliness may have had an impact on his mental health. The man is inclined to question his own sanity after he realizes that the woman in the scene was imagined, although she is not the product of his own imagination. “The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository” taps into the secret fear of all avid readers that the line between reality and fiction might be uncomfortably thin. Fans of fantasy, serious literature, and libraries should all enjoy the story.

The Claxton library is also the setting of “Holmes on the Range”, this time hosting Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who have made a premature appearance at the library after Holmes’ death (later rescinded) in “The Final Solution.” This is a fun story, maybe my favorite in the volume. Apart from its fun factor, it reminders readers why they read: for the opportunity to become lost in a great story, to occupy -- if only momentarily -- a different, more intriguing world.

Books also play a key role in most of the five tales collected under the title “The Fractured Atlas — Five Fragments.” The first tale takes place in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century and involves a number of people in different locations who experience misfortune when a book comes into their hands. The book contains worlds, but those who dare to touch it wish they had not. The second tale features a disagreeable bookseller in nineteenth century London who seeks the help of an occultist to learn the true nature of a book that attacks other books. The third and fourth installments take place in the World War I era. The relatively brief third tale, concerning the mud in which fallen soldiers dwell, sets up the fourth, which is more of a detective story involving a missing person who had been attempting to track down a rumored book of the occult that was known by many names, including The Fractured Atlas. The fifth is basically an epilog to the fourth. In the end, the five tales can be read as a story about how books change the world, although not always for the better.

“Blood of the Lamb” is a short, surprising, aptly named, and remarkably creepy story about a girl who has a miraculous power that, to her parents’ dismay, is both revered and feared. The need to feed the woods-dwelling Razorshins with bootleg whiskey during prohibition is the subject of “Razorshins.”

With the help of a … something … the rape victim in “The Lamia” gets revenge. Only a page long, “A Dream of Winter” is as chilling as its title implies.

“The Hollow King” goes off to fight an annual battle with the forces of evil, but each time he returns, the single tear shed by his Queen renews him … but how many tears will the Queen shed when she learns the truth about her King? “Lazarus” arises from the dead and is a disappointment to all, including himself.

Two men who rob the houses and bodies of the dead in a time of war realizes they’re looting the wrong house when they meet “The Children of Dr. Lyall.” An old man checks into a hotel room in “A Haunting,” finding it occupied by a younger version of his dead wife.

The story behind a gruesome painting that might not exist is told in “On The Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier.” It is the least successful entry in the collection.

The collection ends with an engaging essay in which Connolly traces his history as a reader, viewer, and writer of horror. I often skim or skip nonfiction essays in a collection of fiction, but this one -- like the collection as a whole -- is both insightful and entertaining.

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The Wolf in Winter by John Connolly

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 28, 2014

A girl named Annie is being held captive in an unfriendly town called Prosperous. Suspecting that his daughter is in trouble but finding himself unwelcome in Prosperous, Annie's homeless father hopes to get help from Charlie Parker. The father is found swinging from a rope before they have a chance to talk.

Prosperous, notable for its old English church that once hosted a now defunct religion, is one of the creepy, incestuous towns that writers of horror and crime novels like to create. The residents of Prosperous share a secret and are hostile to outsiders who might learn its dirty business. John Connolly provides enough background to the town and its people to make it believable but not so much as to slow the story with needless detail.

Connolly weaves the history of the mystic religious sect into a plot that takes Parker to Prosperous as he follows the trail of the homeless man's missing daughter. About halfway into the novel, the story takes a supernatural turn, as Parker novels usually do. The supernatural elements are the least interesting aspect of the story but The Wolf in Winter does have the creepy feeling of a good X-Files episode.

An extended section of the book takes place while Parker is out of action, giving series regulars Ronald Straydeer and the killer couple Louis and Angel a chance to be in the limelight. They are strong characters who easily carry the story. The Collector, a recurring villain in the series, makes an appearance, advancing an ongoing subplot while altering the mission that has recently motivated Louis and Angel.

Connolly writes with unusual sensitivity and compassion about the homeless. They are, in fact, some of the best characters in the book. The bad guys are also described in convincing detail. Some residents of Prosperous are just playing the hands they were dealt while the town's rulers are the embodiment of evil when they aren't behaving like ordinary folk.

Connolly's commentary adds personality to the characters and amusement to the story. A character's reference to readers who take "reading books very seriously without ever understanding how the act could be enjoyable as well" and his flaming condemnation of Look Homeward, Angel were among my favorites. I take reading seriously but if I'm not enjoying a book, I don't finish it. The Wolf in Winter was easy to finish.

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