runner

The first in the series and we meet Charlie "bird" Parker. The writing of John Connolly is highly intelligent and informative creating a crime story out of ancient texts and mythology which is both horrific and spellbinding in it's telling. Charlie's wife Susan and his daughter Jennifer have both been murdered, their bodies butchered, dissected and displayed in a macabre demonstration of ancient belief and ritual. There is a link to the present atrocities being committed by the Travelling Man and the pain and suffering that must be borne by Charlie Parker, as he attempts to solve these senseless killings and bring the perpetrator to justice.

"In killing his victims in this way, he was making them aware of their own mortality, exposing to them their own interiors, introducing them to the meaning of true pain; but they also served as a reminder to others of their own mortality and the final, dreadful pain that would some day find them." And that was what the Travelling Man wanted: to provide, in the deaths of others, a reminder of the deaths of us all and the worthlessness of love and loyalty,of parenthood and friendship, of sex and need and joy, in the face of the emptiness to come.

By including elements of crime and horror Connolly has created both a character and a novel of sublime depth and intelligence and a wonderful introduction to an amazing series.....