Connolly’s latest is a RIVER well-read with BLOOD…
Charlie Parker is hired to investigate the death of a boy at a reformative, privately-run school for troubled youth near Maine’s Kennebec River.
The boy’s body was found fractured and drowned with the official story being he was rebelliously fleeing the school and died from the elements, but his absentee, incarcerated father insists that it was no accident. Parker isn’t initially convinced that foul-play is the cause, but it’s quickly clear that all is not well in the institution or the people who are supposed to be overseeing its activities. Given his own tragic past, Parker has no tolerance for those who hurt others… especially those who hurt children.
A local girl has also gone missing and while there are those who see a link between the two events, there are also those who want to make sure that a connection is never made.
Meanwhile a cabal of sadistic but methodical killers continue their ‘game’ of grabbing women off the streets and subjecting them to humiliation and lingering deaths and their connection to events elsewhere is also one they all hope to keep in the dark.
Even as Parker and associates such as Angel and Louis investigate, they start to discover long-buried secrets of their own, someone… something… is watching and waiting.
And it’s been watching and waiting for a very long time…
*some spoilers*
Books, just like people, move at different speeds. Having just finished a Michael Connelly novel – one that powers along at a procedural pace – diving into a John Connolly tome feels immediately more sedate, full of page-turning menace but with the sense of growing unease rather than immediate urgency – something that works in its favour. If it has an eye on the clock, it’s merely to look at time as history in the making, observing as much backwards as forwards to its destination, but never becalmed.
Like every John Connolly book, it’s good to have a dictionary or thesaurus nearby because sooner or later you’ll want to check what a word or phrase means. The author, like the river of the book’s title, has a sense of ebb and flow when it comes to the use of language and where some might think that particular choices of words are almost showing off, the truth is that Connolly loves both history (how we got here) and language (how we measure ‘here’).
But despite having the author’s signature style and a wide range of intertwining narratives and characters, A River Red with Blood feels like the tightest entry in some time. This could be a side-effect of the fact that, originally, this wasn’t the title due to be released this year and was finished more quickly (to take the place of another tome that was pushed back due to the rebranding of Connolly’s back-catalogue), but the expected lengthy diversions and proof of historical due-diligence are scattered lightly throughout rather than being the pillars on which previous instalments have leant in to for support.
There are two thematic halves to the Charlie Parker series, ones that sometimes fight for domination in any particular novel. One is the investigative story pursued by Parker and the all-too-human obstacles he faces. The other is far more spiritual, gothic and unsettling – the idea of unseen forces (unless they wish to be seen) and older truths that the word ‘supernatural’ doesn’t quite cover. There’s more to Parker than meets the eye, things glimpsed but rarely fully-explained or acknowledged. Interestingly, A River Red with Blood, manages to balance both elements equally with a sense of foreboding throughout.
The separate strands, slowly dovetailing together and patiently circling each other like a bird of prey ready to strike, work well. The insidious nature of the reform school is well-captured, a Lord of the Flies type feel as we witness the machinations of both staff and pupils, growingly aware of other outliers that threaten them from without and within. Connolly knows that evil can be merely human and not supernatural and the sadistic nature of the ‘Game’ players remains creepy and unnerving but kept at just enough arms-length’ to be disturbing rather than truly and unnecessarily voyeuristic. And the sub-plot, showing Angel’s own ruthless imperative in separate proceedings, bodes much for the future.
In some of the Charlie Parker series (now spanning twenty-three books and twenty-seven years in print), knowing the back-story to the saga seems more important. Here, with the exception of the epilogue that does require some past reading, it’s certainly useful but not essential to be up to date. For a series rich in its own mythology and supporting players, it’s not quite the perfect jumping-on point, but it does feel like the start of a new chapter, hinting at the origins of some previously-mentioned elements and even to where the saga might be heading.
Connolly’s books feel both timeless and timely – encompassing references to the ethereal, to centuries old events and to thorny contemporary issues (there’s some political and social references that certainly ground it in the here and now and though one can tell Connolly’s stance on those from the writing, it never distracts). Equally, like that titular river, there’s a trademark, smart and sardonic humour running through it all – sometimes from the character banter and some from the author standing just behind Parker himself.
Not a book that will be devoured at one sitting, but one you will find yourself wading into with purpose, A River Red with Blood is yet more proof that John Connolly is one of the most committed and diligent writers out there for those with a discerning palette and a healthy fear of shadows…
9/10
A River Red with Blood is published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton on 4th May and in the US by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on 2nd June…