The Whisperers by John Connolly
The Whisperers is Irish writer John Connolly’s eleventh CHARLIE PARKER thriller. The books are set for the most part in the USA, mostly in Maine, where Parker, the ex-cop turned private-eye turned something-more makes his home.
Underlying the plot of The Whisperers is a current theme, the question of how wounded soldiers returning home are treated by the government that put them in harm’s way. In this book, a group of Iraq war veterans is smuggling looted antiquities across the Canadian border. Their original purpose was to help their brothers-and-sisters-in-arms, those who returned disabled and are not getting what they need, but things have changed now and become much more sinister. One of the artifacts brings danger. And the veterans, one by one, are dying by their own hands.
Parker is hired ... Read More
The Burning Soul by John Connolly
The Burning Soul, by John Connolly, is an autumnal book, reminding us that winter is coming, a time when we will be more in darkness than light. Surprisingly, given the moody, atmospheric writing, the thriller aspect of the story is grounded in everyday reality, with few supernatural elements — in fact, only a few ghosts haunt this book, and one ghost is missing, its absence a shock.
Charlie Parker is a private investigator. He is a man whose wife and young daughter were taken from him by a serial killer, and a combatant in an eternal war, the shape of which he is only beginning to see. Parker confronts garden-variety human evil in The Burning Soul. In the small town of Pastor’s Bay, Maine, a fourteen year old girl, Anna Kore, has gone missing. The unspoken truth about child abductions is that the longer they go on, the wor... Read More
A Book of Bones by John Connolly
2019’s A Book of Bones is the 18th book in John Connolly’s CHARLIE PARKER series. This series is dark, with a thriller plot steeped in supernatural elements. Over the years, we’ve seen Parker, his human helpers Louis and Angel, and his supernatural protectors Sam and Jennifer face a variety of entities. A Book of Bones seems to resolve most of the issues around a specific Not-God and an evil murderous cult called the Familists. The two nasty villains, a book collector named Quayle and a creepy woman called Pallida Mors — a play on “Pale Death” — return from the previous book, and Parker is on their trail.
Parker is giving evidence in a child sex-trafficking case in Texas when he is called away by his FBI connection, Special Agen... Read More
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
A vulnerable boy makes his way into an alternate world filled with magic and danger. To return to his own world, he must find a talisman held by the land’s king. He is beset by dangers, unsure who to trust.
So far, this sounds like many other books and stories; myths, fairy tales, “Thomas the Rhymer,” The King of Elfland’s Daughter, The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, even The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly is... Read More
Conquest by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard
At first, Conquest by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard reminded me of a blend of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth; the Final Conflict, and the history of the Roman Empire. The Roddenberry sense comes from the descriptions of the aliens who conquer Earth; tall, slender and graceful, some with shaven heads, and a melodic, trilling name, the Illyri. By the second chapter, though, I felt firmly grounded in Roman conquest, as Andrus, the Illyri governor of Earth, and his primary general discuss an attack at an Illyri fortress, presumably by the human Resistance. The “Roman outpost” feeling is helped along by the settings, first Edinburgh and later the Scottish Highlands.
The Illyri adults we follow in this YA adventure have a nagging sense of something rotten back at the heart of the Empire, through the wor... Read More
Empire by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard
(Warning, may contain spoilers for Conquest.)
Empire, by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard, is filled with action, suspense, and characters we care about. It is YA but adults will enjoy it.
In Conquest, the first book of THE CHRONICLES OF THE INVADERS, Earth had been conquered by a technologically superior race, the Illyri. Syl, a young woman, was the first Illyrian born on Earth. Paul Kerr was a member of Earth’s Resistance movement. Fate threw these two unlikely lovers together, but their commitment goes beyond their feelings for each other. Paul and Syl uncovered a conspiracy by a parasitic alien race that is controlling many of the Illyrians. Now, in Empire, Read More
Dominion by John Connolly & Jennifer Ridyard
The CHRONICLES OF THE INVADERS by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard comes to a satisfying conclusion with Dominion, the final book of the trilogy. We get a post-apocalyptic survival story on earth, an off-planet prison break, space battles, and political skullduggery and espionage in the halls of the Nairene Sisterhood. Each character faces multiple layers of jeopardy as the story comes to a close, and it’s not certain that everyone we like will live.
In the past, the Illyri invaded and conquered Earth. The conquest was uneasy because the human resistance movement kept fighting. Illyri girls Syl Hellais and her friend Ani Cienda met Paul and Steven, human members of that resistance. Syl and Paul fell in love, and soon discovered so... Read More
The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Christopher Golden (ed.)
FORMAT/INFO: The New Dead is 400 pages long divided over nineteen short stories. Also includes a Foreword by the editor Christopher Golden, and biographies on all of the anthology’s contributors. February 16, 2010 marks the North American Trade Paperback publication of The New Dead via St. Martin’s Griffin. Cover art provided by Per Haagensen. The UK version will be published on February 18, 2010 via Piatkus Books under the altered title: Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead. Subterranean Press is also producing... Read More
February 13th, 2010.
Robert Thompson (RETIRED)´s rating:
4.5 |
Christopher Golden,
David Wellington,
Joe Hill,
Joe R. Lansdale,
John Connolly,
Jonathan Maberry,
Kelley Armstrong,
Mike (M.R.) Carey,
Rick Hautala,
Tad Williams,
Tim Lebbon |
Short Fiction |
SFF Reviews |
no comments
Today's feature comes courtesy of Mihir Wanchoo, who reviews over at Fantasy Book Critic.
When I saw Amanda’s call going out for readers everywhere to write about their favourite authors and “why others should read them too” I was intrigued. When I thought about who I could write about, one name popped out in my head…. John Connolly. Its not as if John needs any help from me or any other blogger for that matter, his books are popular on both sides of the Atlantic as well with readers from both genres of mystery thrillers & SF, but I couldn’t resist encouraging others to read him. John was first published in 1999 with Every Dead Thing. It was a thriller which began with the murder of Charlie Parker’s wife and daughter. After a dark beginning the story started introducing us to Parker’s world: ... Read More
I'm reporting about Day 2 today. Read about Day One here.
There were lots of interesting panels today, and it was frustrating to try to boil them down into the ones I wanted to see.
My first choice was “Retelling Old Stories: The New Fairy Tales.” I’ve got all the modern fairy tale collections edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow and many other rewritings, so I was eager to hear this discussion, and it didn’t disappoint. The first question addressed by the panel was the obvious one: why rewrite fairy tales? Read More
October 29th, 2011.
Terry Weyna |
Charlaine Harris,
Connie Willis,
Elizabeth Bear,
Graham Joyce,
Jessica Day George,
John Connolly,
Kate Elliott,
Louise Marley,
Malinda Lo,
Melinda Snodgrass,
Neil Gaiman |
Convention |
2 comments
More by John Connolly
Samuel Johnson vs. The Devil — (2009-2013) Ages 10 and up. Publisher: Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund, Boswell, are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween, which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Road. The Abernathys don’t mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld, but when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe, a gap through which a pair of enormous gates is visible. The gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out…. Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith, and love to save the world as we know it? Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy and the courage of a boy who is barely old enough to trick or treat on his own. This novel makes anything seem possible.
Bad Men — (2003) Publisher: On the Maine island once known as Sanctuary, policeman Joe Dupree is the guardian of its secrets, keeper of its memories. He knows that Sanctuary had been steeped in carnage once, centuries ago, when its settlers were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered. Now, a strange, otherworldly evil is about to descend again…. With rookie officer Sharon Macy, Joe stands guard against a bloodthirsty band of men set on murder, robbery, and retribution. But unleashing the fury of the ghosts of the past will have unimaginable consequences for any who spill innocent blood on Sanctuary’s shores.
Nocturnes — (2004) Publisher: In his first collection of short fiction, New York Times bestselling author John Connolly offers a selection of dark, daring, and utterly haunting tales. Here are lost lovers and missing children, predatory demons, and vengeful ghosts. In “The New Daughter,” a father comes to suspect that a burial mound on his land hides something very ancient, and very much alive; in “The Underbury Witches,” a pair of London detectives find themselves battling a particularly female evil in a town culled of its menfolk. And finally, private detective Charlie Parker returns in the long novella “The Reflecting Eye,” in which the photograph of an unknown girl turns up in the mailbox of an abandoned house once occupied by an infamous killer. This discovery forces Parker to confront the possibility that the house is not as empty as it appears, and that something has been waiting in the darkness for its chance to kill again.
The Wanderer in Unknown Realms — (2013) Publisher: “Books alter men, and men, in their turn, alter worlds.” Soter is a man who has been haunted by World War I. But when he’s sent to investigate the disappearance of Lionel Maudling, the owner of a grand country house whose heir may be accused for his death, he encounters a home that will lead him to nightmares he could have never imagined. Maudling’s estate houses countless books of every sort — histories, dramas, scientific treatises. But none seems to offer Soter any hint to Maudling’s whereabouts, until he’s led to an arcane London bookseller where the reclusive scholar made his last purchase. What Soter finds at the end of a twisted maze of clues is a book like no other, with a legacy that will put everything he knows in danger… An inventive horror novella from internationally bestselling author John Connolly, this is a story of madness, of obsession, and of books’ power to change the world.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE TITLES BY JOHN CONNOLLY.
(1968- )
