Synopses & Reviews
Have faith. I will find you.
Former NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker is on the verge of madness. Tortured by the unsolved slayings of his wife and young daughter, he is a man consumed by guilt, regret, and the desire for revenge.
When his former partner asks him to track down a missing girl, Parker finds himself drawn into a world beyond his imagining: a world where thirty-year-old killings remain shrouded in fear and lies, a world where the ghosts of the dead torment the living, a world haunted by the murderer responsible for the deaths in his family a serial killer who uses the human body to create works of art and takes faces as his prize. But the search awakens buried instincts in Parker: instincts for survival, for compassion, for love, and, ultimately, for killing.
Aided by a beautiful young psychologist and a pair of bickering career criminals, Parker becomes the bait in a trap set in the humid bayous of Louisiana, a trap that threatens the lives of everyone in its reach. Driven by visions of the dead and the voice of an old black psychic who met a terrible end, Parker must seek a final, brutal confrontation with a murderer who has moved beyond all notions of humanity, who has set out to create a hell on earth: the serial killer known only as the Traveling Man.
In the tradition of classic American detective fiction, Every Dead Thing is a tense, richly plotted thriller, filled with memorable characters and gripping action. It is also a profoundly moving novel, concerned with the nature of loyalty, love, and forgiveness. Lyrical and terrifying, it is an ambitious debut, triumphantly realized.
Review
"Every Dead Thing is intelligent, deep, and literate, and it is difficult to believe that this is John Connolly's first novel, so confident is the writing....Buy it and be scared." The Saturday Times (London)
Review
"[A]mbitious, grisly, monstrously overextended....[Connolly is] extravagantly gifted....Beneath the unblinking carnage and grueling pace is a truly harrowing murder plot." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] darkly ingenious debut novel....The prose rings of '40s L.A. noir, a' la Chandler and Hammett, but the grisly deaths, poetic cops and psychic episodes set this tale apart." Publishers Weekly
Review
"The grim and grisly events are emotionally balanced by the book's dark humor and Bird's vulnerability. This is a highly intelligent and exciting novel, with almost enough action and story for two books. Recommended." Library Journal
Review
"[G]ripping....[T]he tale draws in an eclectic mix of characters...and the reader will find himself almost holding his breath in anticipation as Parker dances near to a solution..." Irish America Magazine
Synopsis
Hailed internationally as a page-turner in a league with the fiction of Thomas Harris, this lyrical and terrifying bestseller is the stunning achievement of an "extravagantly gifted" (Kirkus Reviews) new novelist. John Connolly superbly taps into the tortured mind and gritty world of former NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker, tormented by the brutal, unsolved murders of his wife and young daughter. Driven by visions of the dead, Parker tracks a serial killer from New York City to the American South, and finds his buried instincts for love, survival, and, ultimately, for killing awakening as he confronts a monster beyond imagining...
About the Author
John Connolly is a journalist for The Irish Times. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.