Dark Hollow

This is the second book in Irish author John Connolly's "Charlie 'Bird' Parker" series (see my post on the first book for more info on the main character: Every Dead Thing). As with Connolly's inaugural outing, this is first-rate writing, well-plotted, and grisly... making it, as Publishers Weekly says, "compulsively readable." Newly licensed as a PI, Bird is in the process of rehabbing his maternal grandfather's old farmhouse in Scarborough, Maine. The book opens with two seemingly un-related events: a kidnapping payoff in which almost everyone ends up dead, and an old woman who escapes from a run-down home for the aging and then shoots herself. When we switch to Parker, he is trying to get some overdue child support money from local ne'er do well, Billy Purdue, as a favor to Billy's ex-wife, Rita. Charlie ends up with several stitches from a knife wound and five crisp new $100 bills for his trouble. He should have been suspicious about the source of the money, but that doesn't come until later, when the mobster from whom Billy apparently stole the money, Tony Celli, sends his goons to rough up Parker. Meanwhile--again, this is reminiscent of Connolly's first book--after Rita is found murdered with her mouth sewn shut, a second storyline emerges about missing women over the years near Dark Hollow, Maine. Parker's grandfather, also a cop in his day, had pursued the case of the missing women and found their mutilated bodies hanging from trees in the deep northern Maine woods, but the killer was never found, although he believed the man was named Caleb Kyle. All these characters and trajectories converge as Bird pursues, with help from Angel and Luis, very dangerous people who would rather see him dead. What is notable to me about these books is how many threads Connolly manages to weave together without getting tangled. The woods of Maine in the winter become their own character and you'll want to be snug and warm when you read this to prevent getting chilled! There are elements of the supernatural in Parker's newfound ability to see the dead, especially his murdered wife and child.

Publishers Weekly also says Connolly achieves "pitch-perfect American dialogue and believable American characters from a desk in Dublin." Kirkus is not as gushing in its praise but still concludes the book is a "long stride forward."