FIRST GREAT READS FOR JULY, 2017
A
Game of Ghosts, by John Connolly
Be that as it may.
Charlie is instructed by laconic FBI Agent Edgar Ross, his sometime
employer, to search for private investigator Jaykob Eklund who has not
contacted Ross for two weeks. Eklund was
on the trail of the Capstead descendants;
he also had evidence of ghostly presences connected to them, a theory
the hard-bitten Ross dismisses: from
previous experience however, Charlie knows differently.
As is the norm in a Charlie Parker book (see reviews
below), there are a treasure trove of minor characters, all beautifully drawn
and some completely unforgettable, like The Collector, a murderous avenger who
collects a souvenir from each of his victims;
(we say farewell to him in this volume, and I stress again: you really need to read the previous stories)
and Mother, widow of a shadowy super gangster, who is determined to wind up all
his criminal enterprises – to the dismay and fury of her son Philip, who has
the ambition but not the skill to continue operations. Compared to them, not to mention that
mismatched pair of killers, Angel and Louis, the Capstead descendants are third
rate, and their eventual come-uppance hardly raised an eyebrow, let alone my
heart-rate.
Fortunately, Charlie Parker’s daughters alive and dead,
provided more goose pimples: Sam the
living daughter, has daily conversations with her dead sister Jennifer; they have appointed themselves guardians of
Charlie and Co. and have developed formidable powers between them in an effort
to keep their father safe, as Sam’s mother Rachel discovers when she decides to
place restrictions on Sam’s access to Charlie:
everything hits the fan, and Rachel is persuaded to change her mind by
the reactions of her living daughter – and the dead one.
So. Still plenty
of reasons to look forward to the next book, but I hope that Mr Connolly, that
master of supernatural suspense, is back on song next time – in this book, all
the I’s are dotted and T’s crossed;
answers are given to outstanding plot questions, but in such a
perfunctory manner that the reader could be forgiven for thinking that Mr
Connolly rushed to finish everything off so that he could indulge himself in
something more interesting. FOUR STARS
A
Time of Torment, by John Connolly
The State of West
Virginia hides a reclusive sect within one of the smallest counties within its
bounds, Plassey County. Everyone in the
adjoining villages surrounding The Cut, as it is known, are careful not to
recognise – or God forbid – antagonise the Cut dwellers; it is common knowledge that bad things happen
to them if they do. People disappear,
and if they don’t, their bodies are found burnt and desecrated. The people of the Cut keep to themselves, and
their neighbours are happy to leave them alone.
It is rumoured that their small sect worships an alien God, a God of
blood and retribution, a God that no normal Christian could countenance: the Dead King.
Enter private
investigator Charlie Parker, no stranger to battling the forces of evil, and
recently terribly injured in his efforts to vanquish his enemies. He comes to Plassey County to find his
client, a man just released from prison after serving a trumped-up sentence for
child molestation. His only request of
Charlie is to look into the disappearance of two women who were dear to him
while he was inside; women who didn’t
believe that he was guilty of the heinous crimes of which he was accused. He also tells Charlie that if he disappears,
then he has been kidnapped, probably by The Cut, and his life will be
over. Charlie and his two murderous
sidekicks Louis and Angel, are ready as always to ferret out the truth and find
out where the bodies are hidden, not to mention adding a few corpses of their
own to the growing pile.
Last, but certainly
never least, Charlie’s two daughters, one living and one dead watch over him
with varying degrees of anxiety – at least on the part of Jennifer, the little
daughter murdered many years before.
(You really DO have to read these books from the beginning!) Samantha, daughter # 2, seems to have more
confidence in her father’s ability to successfully fight the Dead King; she has quite exceptional powers of her own,
which have yet to be tested.
John Connolly has always
described his Charlie Parker tales as ‘odd little books’: maybe they are for some but for legions of
his fans around the world, odd is good!
(see 2014 review below) His
characters are always, without exception, well-drawn and credible and each
story is wonderfully plotted with just the right mix of horror and humour – and
always, ALWAYS beautifully written. It
won’t be a spoiler to say that the people of The Cut are eventually defeated,
but horror and dread is still just around the next corner for Charlie and his
mighty friends. FIVE STARS.
A
Song of Shadows, by John Connolly
It
is a long, painful road back to recovery.
Charlie is not used to the weakness and agony his many injuries cause
him but he is determined to get better: he
made the decision to live, now that is exactly what he plans to do.
He
is delighted to have a visit from his daughter Samantha, his child by his
ex-lover Rachel, and it gives him pleasure to have found a playmate for
her; his beach side neighbour, Ruth
Winter has a little girl Amanda who, despite health problems that keep her away
from school a lot, welcomes Sam’s company:
from a social perspective life is good.
Until
a body is found on a nearby beach, and it is eventually established that it
wasn’t a drowning or a suicide, but murder;
at the same time a family has been found murdered in their burning house
and the Maine police are swamped with crimes for which they are badly
under-resourced. Tragically, these
crimes pale into insignificance when Ruth Winter is cruelly murdered on the
night of Sam and Amanda’s playdate, but the most uncanny event for Charlie
Parker is that his daughter wakes him to tell him that a man is trying to enter
Ms Winter’s home. How could she know?
Charlie
is injured trying to apprehend the murderer on the dunes and it seems that
finally his own life is about to end – until Sam (who was under strict
instructions to stay in her bedroom) appears at his side to confront the killer
– who succumbs to burial under a massive fall of sand, an occurrence that
hasn’t happened for decades at that part of the beach .To say that Sam is no
ordinary little girl is an understatement.
It
is time for Charlie, with the assistance of Louis and Angel, to return to what
he is best at: investigating murder and
stamping out evil – if he can, and the deeper he delves into Ruth’s killing,
unspeakable old crimes and pure evil finally reveal themselves, for Ruth, a
Jew, was killed so that she would not disclose anything she may have
inadverdently learned about old Nazis:
Nazi war criminals who entered the United States from Argentina under
assumed identities, several of whom settled in Maine. None wish to be exposed and sent back to
Germany, and they will go to any lengths, including multiple murders, to stay
where they are.
Charlie
Parker is a different person now, after his close brush with death. There is an implacability, a hardness and
resolve about him that cause his loyal friends much disquiet but they are
determined – as always – to support him to the hilt in his efforts to purge
evil. Charlie is unfazed by the fact
that the battle may be uneven; what
nearly stops his heart is the knowledge that his daughter Sam is just as
committed as he to stamp out the enemies of the world, and he is fully aware
that she is in just as much danger.
As always, Mr Connolly
leaves his readers in terrible suspense right to the last page - which only poses more questions and enables
this beautifully written series to continue.
What a master he is, and what a pleasure it is to read a Charlie Parker
book. FIVE STARS
Don’t
Let Go, by Michel Bussi
French Author
Michel Bussi (according to the book blurbs) is the second highest-selling
author in France, but it is only recently that his novels been translated into
English starting with the superb thriller ‘After the Crash’ (see ecstatic 2015
review below), and followed by ‘Black Water Lilies’ – such a disappointment to
me that I did not waste my time writing a review for such a mediocre
offering; after limping to the end of it
I decided reluctantly that Mr Bussi was a One Hit Wonder - until now.
When
‘Don’t Let Go’ became available, the memory of ‘After the Crash’ convinced me
to give Mr Bussi another try, and while his latest work is still below the very
high bar he set for himself originally, it’s still a classy, highly readable
thriller, proving that when he’s not distracted from his day job (a Professor
of Geography: where does he find the
time!) he can write suspense novels par excellence.
The
Mascarene Island of Réunion is a French possession in the
Indian Ocean and prides itself on being the perfect tourist destination; it has everything required for R & R –
perfect weather and beaches, palm trees, five-star accommodation, an oversupply
of bars and night clubs – and a wondrous, frightening number of active
volcanoes. No matter if the local
population lives in varying degrees of minimum-wage poverty and squalor; tourism is the premier industry and those with Euros to spend must be kept
ignorant of poverty, squalor – and the crime that accompanies it - at all
costs.
Therefore,
it comes as an enormous shock to the local police force when the beautiful wife
of a tourist couple goes missing from the top-class hotel in which they were
staying. She left behind her husband and
six year old daughter, saying she was going to change after her swim; then she was not seen again. She was reported missing by her distraught
husband, but subsequent enquiries reveal that he had also gone back to their
room, and was eventually seen by several hotel employees wheeling a laundry
cart downstairs and outside to his rental car:
rumours rebound from one end of the island to the other: tourist Martial Bellion has killed his wife
Liane after a domestic (lots of locals could identify with that) and tried to
shield himself by reporting her missing, BUT.
Now he has disappeared, too, along with his little daughter
Josapha. A manhunt is launched – this
man is dangerous, a killer, for two more murders are discovered in the course
of the police search. All the evidence,
circumstantial though it may be, fits:
Martial is a crazed murderer and his little daughter will probably be
next, if she hasn’t been despatched already.
Mr
Bussi writes very convincingly and well of island life and politics; he is a good researcher and brings to life in
his no-nonsense prose the various levels of strata in the lives of the haves
and have-nots. And it eventually comes
as no surprise to find that handsome tourist Martial has several shameful
secrets, secrets that don’t show up well in the light of day: is he as guilty as the police think? And if not, then who is?
I am
happy to say that I didn’t know Whodunit until Mr Bussi chose to let me. He is definitely back on song with ‘Don’t Let
Go’; his characters are always engaging,
especially the local police chief and her Second-in-Command and, apart from an
unnecessary touch of melodrama when the real killer is revealed, he has done
much to restore the respect I lost for him after staggering through ‘Black
Water Lilies.’ FOUR STARS
After the Crash, by Michel Bussi
On December 23rd,
1980, an Airbus 5403 flying from Istanbul to Paris crashes during a terrible
storm in the Jura mountains bordering Switzerland and France. All are killed, except for a three-month-old
girl, found half-frozen in the snow but otherwise unharmed – a miracle baby, a
child who survived impossible odds, and the precious darling of her surviving
family in France.
But which family?
According to the passenger list, two baby girls were
travelling with their parents;
Lyse-Rose, 3 month old daughter of the son of a fabulously rich family,
the de Carvilles, returning from running subsidiaries of the family business in
Turkey, and Emilie, a baby of the same age whose parents, Pascal and Stephanie
Vitral had been given a trip to Turkey by Pascal’s parents who had won it
themselves but couldn’t make the trip;
instead they looked after Marc, Emilie’s elder brother aged two, so that
his parents could have a lovely holiday.
The Vitral grandparents are unashamedly working class
people who make ends meet by running a food van in Dieppe and the surrounding
area. They are salt-of-the-earth good
citizens with sound principles – and a strong conviction that the surviving miracle
baby is their granddaughter, and they are willing to fight to the end of their
slim resources to prove it. Léonce de
Carville, grandfather of Lyse-Rose, is also as convinced that the little girl
belongs to his family, the difference being that he has enormous wealth and
power at his disposal, not to mention the services of Crédule Grand-Duc, a
private detective in his employ charged with investigating fully the origins of
the surviving child, and establishing beyond doubt that she is a de Carville
– for Léonce is so used to controlling the
lives and fates of others that he cannot bear to have uncertainties in his own
life, let alone lose a fight.
So begins one of the most compulsive page-turners I have
read this year. French author Mr Bussi
gathers up readers and flings them forward on a truly thrilling, mysterious
ride spanning eighteen years, and not once (and I’m usually very good at
figuring out whodunit well before the book’s end) was I able to see who
resorted to murder, and why: each chapter
was never what it seemed.
Mr Bussi’s style is competent and workmanlike; no pretty word pictures here except for the
character of Lyse-Rose’s emotionally damaged elder sister Malvina: his prose turns purple and melodramatic to
the point of turning her into a Witchy-poo from a fairy tale, but this does
little to detract from the overall impact of this high-octane thriller. I hope he is hard at work on another
one. SIX STARS!!
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