The Whisperers: A Charlie Parker Thriller: 9 - Softcover

Connolly, John

4.08

7,489 ratings by Goodreads

9781439165249: The Whisperers: A Charlie Parker Thriller: 9

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439165246 ISBN 13: 9781439165249

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2011

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" Oh, little one, he whispered, as he gently stroked her cheek, the first time he had touched her in fifteen years. What have they done to you? What have they done to us all? "
In his latest dark and chilling Charlie Parker thriller, New York Times bestselling author John Connolly takes us to the border between Maine and Canada. It is there, in the vast and porous Great North Woods, that a dangerous smuggling operation is taking place, run by a group of disenchanted former soldiers, newly returned from Iraq. Illicit goods drugs, cash, weapons, even people are changing hands. And something else has changed hands. Something ancient and powerful and evil.
The authorities suspect something is amiss, but what they can t know is that it is infinitely stranger and more terrifying than anyone can imagine. Anyone, that is, except private detective Charlie Parker, who has his own intimate knowledge of the darkness in men s hearts. As the smugglers begin to die one after another in apparent suicides, Parker is called in to stop the bloodletting. The soldiers actions and the objects they have smuggled have attracted the attention of the reclusive Herod, a man with a taste for the strange. And where Herod goes, so too does the shadowy figure that he calls the Captain. To defeat them, Parker must form an uneasy alliance with a man he fears more than any other, the killer known as the Collector. . . ."

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Review:

When so many writers depressingly tread the same familiar territory, it's particularly invigorating when one comes across someone like John Connolly. To some degree, this immensely talented Irish writer (who, refreshingly free of parochialism, sets his books in the USA), utilises tropes and concepts that other crime/thriller novelists have used, but synthesises and transforms them in strange and quirky new ways, creating a rich panoply of literary effects that are very much his own territory.

His long-term protagonist, detective Charlie Parker, makes a welcome return in The Whisperers. The setting is the border between Canada and Maine, at which the concept of control is fairly nebulous. There is a regular traffic across the border of everything from drugs and armaments to people and money. One particular smuggling initiative is markedly different from the rest: a cadre of ex-soldiers are smuggling something very unusual indeed, and it is up to the battered but resilient private eye Charlie Parker to take on some dangerous opponents. But there is something else in the mix here: the mysterious individual known as Herod, and his equally enigmatic companion The Captain. Too much even for John Connolly's tough hero? Perhaps... and that is also why the terrifying murderer known as the Collector may be inveigled into a strange partnership with Parker.

The customary mix of Chandlerian crime-solving and minatory Gothic atmosphere is fully in evidence here, and John Connolly's instinct for this kind of material remains as unerring as ever. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

A tour de force finale in a book which will sure be a bestseller this summer. It well deserves to be. (Independent on Sunday)

Brilliant, terrifying and effortlessly seductive, I defy anyone to put this thriller down - it is sensational. (Daily Mail)

Another creepy thriller from a modern master. (Daily Mirror)

This is one of Connolly's darker, scarier novels, all the more effective for the way the supernatural elements arise organically out of the realistic detail (Guardian)

Connolly subtly combines the supernatural with the traditional crime story to superb effect. And in Herod, a man being eaten by cancer, he may have created his creepiest villain yet. (Sun)

As ever with Connolly, the macabre narrative is couched in prose that is often allusive and poetic. (Barry Forshaw, Independent)

Visionary brand of neo-noir . . . terrifically exciting, tightly plotted . . . written in an uncommonly fine, supple, sensuous prose. (Irish Times)

Tremendous stuff, as Connolly's novels always are. (Mark Timlin, Independent on Sunday)

His latest plot is a clever mixture of quest and chase, written in prose that unfolds at warp speed, and rarely fails to sing. (The Observer)

Impossible to put down. His best yet . . . This is a novel to enjoy on every level because Connolly writes like an angel. His prose is so good, so precisely nuanced, in a few short sentences describing something really scary that will literally make the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. (IndependentDublin)

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