A Song of Shadows - John Connolly

Charlie Parker comes across all kinds of horrors in his work as a Private Detective, particularly for one who is sensitive to or who tends to attract things of a somewhat supernatural character. The horror that comes up in A Song of Shadows however is one that is rather disturbingly entirely man-made - or, depending on your view of evil, perhaps not - extending to those involved in the running of the Nazi death camps during WWII and their victims.

Parker got a bit too close to the after-life in his last case, and at the start of A Song of Shadows he's in recovery in the small coastal town of Boreas in Maine. Lucky to be alive at all, he's making his first tentative, painful steps to recovery, but - needless to say - it's not too long before trouble turns up on his doorstep, and of course it's never anything minor either. A dead body washed up on the beach, a burnt house with a family murdered and their son missing, a young neighbouring girl who has unsettling dreams. It's all very sinister, but only the beginning of something much bigger and darker...

What is great about A Song of Shadows - and it really is one of the best John Connolly's I've read - is how comfortable the author is with his leading character and the nature of the world he operates in. There's a complete mastery of all the elements here, a writer who has their own voice and is capable of doing anything with it. What's exciting about this is the nature of the world Connolly has created and how there's a greater sense of a bigger picture gradually forming in the Charlie Parker books, a wider consideration of all questions of Evil and how it operates in our world. Connolly has undoubtedly done a lot of historical research on Nazi concentration camps, but it's how he integrates into the world of Charlie Parker that is really impressive.

This is a measure of the growing brilliance of Connolly's writing. It goes beyond the well established characters of Parker, Louis and Angel, even past the usual stock law-enforcement types you usually find in such books (although Parker has always been fairly original). Each of them has distinct personalities and lives, even old Nazis.  All the little added details are meaningful, dialogue and conversations are revealing of character, as well as often being sharp and wonderfully humorous. This is terrific writing, never ostentatious, always enriching, and another superb entry into an impressive crime series.