Recommended for fans Charlie Parker Read October 2021 ★ ★ ★ 1/2 Do you ever wonder if an author's been reading too many book reviews? That their books are a response to fans as much as a creative impulse? As this series has progressed, Parker has grown into his role as avenging angel, aided by the highly competent skills of Louis and Angel. The retribution culminated in A Time of Torment when they took on the many members of a cult and their dead god. Perhaps worried by their abilities, the next books have seen the dark heroes struggling with the fragility of their earthly bodies. Parker has recovered from being shot but is feeling spiritual weariness, and Angel starts the story in a hospital bed, after surgery for colon cancer.
This book also feels particularly topical, although looking back, the themes aren't at all new to the series. There's an undergrown railroad for women fleeing particularly abusive or controlling people, and Louis has his equanimity challenged by a redneck truck. Honestly, out of everything we've witnessed, that felt the most awkward, as the remote and urbane Louis loses his cool out of something that is terribly common in rural areas, north of the Mason-Dixon or not.
Narrative is more straightforward than some of the stories, almost steadily alternating between Parker, the antagonist and the storyline of the missing woman. Like always, the antagonist's narrative is littered with death, although this time the majority of the torture is behind the curtain. Supernatural elements seem more clearly defined than in the majority of the series, with both the antagonist and the missing woman providing otherworldly elements to world-building. Interestingly, Parker is completely unaware of those pressures for the majority of the book.
So, more cohesive, largely better-integrated supernatural elements, torture moved off-screen, emotional gravitas provided by Louis. What's missing? I don't know. Perhaps it can be put down to self-consciousness, that audience-focused writing I mentioned earlier, the feeling that this is an installment more than a work of self-motivated passion.
Despite those misgivings, Connolly still writes beautifully:
"It was the marshes, and the tidal channels running through them, and the smell of salt on the air. It was the light on the water, and the distant sound of the sea, like a whispering at the edge of the world."
He also does a solid job at describing the antagonist(s): "The man's slim fingers reached for it like a spider's forelegs legs testing the air, hovering above the paper but not touching."
Despite the dread and torture, there is a solid sprinkle of humor that surprised me. Usually not the mocking or bitter kinds, but the kind usually between friends, accompanied by a plethora of lawyer jokes: "Moxie tried to compose his features into something resembling a sympathetic expression. Tried, and failed."
Fans of the series generally loved this one, but there's something about it--passion, maybe--that was missing for me. Not enough that I put the book down, mind you. Just enough that I noted it didn't bring the same emotional responses as other books. Still satisfying, and particularly good as a fall read.
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