The Lovers by John Connolly

The Lovers 
by John Connolly
Published June 2009

I was introduced to John Connolly when I stumbled across The Book of Lost Things and became immersed in his fairy tale world set at the start of World War II, a coming of age story that I just can't stop recommending.

I was surprised to recently receive a copy of The Lovers from Atria Books only to learn that Connolly has been writing the Charlie Parker crime series for years (how did I miss this?). The Lovers is the first one I've read and the eighth in the series. Though the book refers to previous events it can be read on its own. I will be going back to the first in the series and reading them in order.

Charlie Parker has a lot of ghosts in his life, the loss of his first wife and child in a brutal murder, his unresolved relationship with his current girlfriend and their two year old child, and his antagonistic relationship with the local police. 


In this book it is Parker's past and the unresolved questions of his father's suicide, as well as the events that surround it, that force him to track down his demons and those of Hell itself. Like Neil Gaimen, the characters created by Connolly are so carefully crafted that the supernatural is plausible. 


Perfect for all these stormy summer nights to read into the wee hours.

From the Publisher -
"Charlie Parker is a lost soul. Deprived of his private investigator's license and under scrutiny by the police, Parker takes a job in a Portland bar. But he uses his enforced retirement to begin a different kind of investigation: an examination of his own past and an inquiry into the death of his father, who took his own life after apparently shooting dead two unarmed teenagers. It's a search that will eventually lead Parker to question all that he believed about his beloved parents, and about himself.

But there are other forces at work: a troubled young woman who is running from an unseen threat, one that has already taken the life of her boyfriend; and a journalist-turned-writer named Mickey Wallace, who is conducting an investigation of his own. And haunting the shadows, as they have done throughout Parker's life, are two figures: a man and a woman who seem driven to bring an end to Charlie Parker's existence.

Haunting, lyrical, and impossible to put down, The Lovers is John Connolly at his best. "



John Connolly bibliography -
Charlie Parker Series - Every Dead Thing (1999), Dark Hollow (2000), The Killing Kind (2001), The White Road (2002), The Black Angel (2005), The Unquiet (2007), The Reapers (2008), The Lovers (2009), The Whisperers (2010)



Other works - Bad Men (2003), The Book of Lost Things (2006), The Gates (2009)

For a recent interview with John Connolly visit the LiverPool Daily Post.