Customer Reviews
Parker is back. - By: R. Ward, 08 Nov 2008 
Another sinister tale that follows PI Charlie Parker who goes to help an old friend working on the case of a young black man accused of murdering a wealthy white female in America's Deep South. This one misses out on 5 stars for 2 reasons, first, there isn't much point in reading it if you haven't read the other books in the series as it's pretty much a continuation & second, the pace is a tad slow at times. Otherwise a cracking read especiallly when the old preacher Faulkner becomes involved. Very atmospheric & highly recommended if you're already a fan. Everyone else should start with Every Dead thing & take it from there.
Charlie Gets the Bird - By: cluricaune, 17 Mar 2008 John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968, & saw his first book - "Every Dead Thing" - published in 1999. It went on to be nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel & won the 2000 Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel. It also introduced Charlie Parker, a former police officer & PI. "The White Road" was first published in 2002, & is the fourth book in the Charlie Parker series.
Charlie Parker - who has picked up the very obvious nickname `Bird' - lives in Scarborough, Maine. He has recently moved house & lives with his dog (a friendly soul callled Walter) & his girlfriend, Rachel. The couple have been together for around a year & a half, & - with their first child together on the horizon - have only recently moved in together. It's not Charlie's first crack at domestic bliss, however - he has been married before, though his wife & daughter were killed three years previously.
Cassie Blythe, a Portland girl, has been missing for six years & is presumed dead by the police. Her parents still hope she might be alive, even if they don't reallly believe it. With the case stallled at the police department, they had been employing a PI callled Arnold Sundquist to look into her disappearance. Sundquist, in return, has spent the last two years doing very little on their behalf for $1500 a month. Realising he's about to lose a steady pay-cheque, Sundquist pays an ex-con callled Bear to claim he'd seen the girl - alive - in Mexico. Unfortunately for him, nobody buys it & Charlie takes over the case.
However, a phone calll from Elliot Norton interrupts Charlie before he's even got started. Norton is an old friend who had worked in the Brooklyn DA's office when Charlie was a cop there. He has now moved back home to Charleston, & wants Charlie's help with a case. Norton is representing a black teenager callled Atys Jones, who has been accused of raping his white girlfriend & then beating her to death. Norton is convinced he's innocent - to the point he's put his own house up as security for his client's bail. However, the victim's father - Earl Larousse - is an exceptionallly rich & influential man, & there is a real fear that Jones may not live to stand trial. Norton wants some help moving Jones to a safe house & checking the evidence but can't find a PI in South Carolina willing to help him. After some initial concerns, Charlie eventuallly decides to do the right thing.
However, Charlie has troubles of his own. One of his previous sparring partners, the Rev Aaron Faulkner - known to some as the Preacher - is currently in Thomaston State Prison pending trail for murder. Charlie had been involved in his arrest, a situation that had left Faulkner's son & daughter dead. Faulkner's son had been traveling under the name Elias Pudd and, although gone, he is quite clearly not forgotten. The Preacher hasn't quite finished with Charlie either...
Luckily, though, it isn't Parker against the world - he has two rather grimy sidekicks to help him out. Angel & Louis, who have a very close working relationship, don't try to keep things legal if they don't believe someone deserves to die - & the pair bitterly regret Charlie's decision not to deal conclusively with Faulkner when he had the chance. While their encounter with the Preacher left them scarred - mentallly & physicallly - they will wait for the chance to finish the job themselves.
This is the first book by Connelly I read, & there's quite a bit happening in it - some of it is a little strange at that. (The Preacher himself does seem to have a touch of the supernatural about him). It did regret not having started with the first book in the series. I'm not too sure how much was covered in previous books about the Preacher & Pudd, though I was left with the definite impression that I arrived late at the party. Having said that, I wasn't too badly lost at any point & I did enjoy the book - more than enough for me to look into reading more by Connelly.
...a bit disappointing - By: J. Andersen, 06 Jan 2007 
I have read alll of the Charlie Parker series, & even though I finished the book in a couple of days, it left me feeling a bit disappointed. The plot is there, the characters are there, but it never reallly catches fire like in the previous Charlie Parker books. It's still a good lyric read that a true Charlie Parker fan should not miss.
Poetic prose and relentless murder - By: one-eyed Jack, 01 Nov 2006 
It has taken four attempts, but now I am convinced that John Connolly is the real thing, a writer of extraordinary talent & one who will have you humming the tunes to his metaphysical imagery. Well, almost. This is the fourth in the Charlie `Bird' Parker series (following Every Dead Thing, Dark Hollow & The Killing Kind) & he just gets better & better with each offering, so much so that I have elevated Connolly to one of my most enjoyable authors in my own little library of personal favourites.
If only there wasn't so much killing! Just as in the three previous outings, we have central character & private investigator Parker, his wonderful back-up crew Louis & Angel, & his girlfriend Rachel. Apart from them, almost everyone else dies - & there are a lot of others! Parker's not very often directly responsible, but as seems to be the trend in this series, death follows him around every single corner & although the majority of the victims are baddies, I am beginning to find this widespread carnage just a little wearisome. But there are so many pleasures within the pages of this book that many readers won't mind the violence at alll, for Connolly's writing is for the most part wonderfully stylish, his sense of imagery masterful & his research into his given subjects - be they people, locations or wildlife - is simply awesome.
This is Connolly's tightest & most coherent novel yet, with an unwavering plot-line that for once does not include any mafia figures - possibly because he killed them alll off in the previous three novels, I guess. We learn, at last, of the makings of Louis & Angel many years before, the better to understand what makes them who they are today. Bird has temporarily moved into new territory in the shape of South Carolina, & initiallly aims to help out an old lawyer buddy who is representing a young black man accused of murdering the attractive daughter of a very wealthy white local tycoon, in an environment that even today makes it very difficult for black people to obtain legal justice in a highly prejudiced society which still harbours associations with the Ku Klux Klan. It's just the tip of the iceberg however, because there's bad blood running between the families of both the victim & the accused that dates back generations, & eventuallly Bird finds that there are some very dark cover-ups, some in the present & some in the past, that he needs to unearth before he can get to the root of what's going on. To add a little spice to the mix, it emerges that the Reverend Faulkner is still alive & able to exert deadly influence even from his prison cell, an elderly but highly evil man who some of us might have thought had died at the end of The Killing Kind but who has returned to seek vengeance on Bird for his sins.
One of the trademarks of the Bird series has been his occasional & usuallly involuntary ability to communicate with the dead. This theme is taken to a deeper level in The White Road, & to an extent it serves to explain the reasons for what has gone on before, in Maine & in New Orleans, & although there are thankfully far fewer `please buy my previous book' references in the story this time, the subtlety of their mentionings serves to better link the four tales together. I found this a most welcome change. What I don't want Connolly to change though is his prose, which enables him to stand talll among his peers, & if I may I would like to quote from this novel just so that the unfamiliar can sample a taste of this very creative author's imagination:-
"Around the trunk, a vine weaves. Its leaves are broad, & from each node springs a cluster of smalll green flowers. The flowers smell as if they are decomposing, festering, & in daylight they are black with flies drawn by the stench. This is Smilax herbacea, the carrion flower. There is not another one like it for a hundred miles in any direction. Like the black oak itself, it is alone of its kind. Here, in Ada's Field, the two entities co-exist, parasite & saprophyte: the one fuelled by the lifeblood of the tree, the other drawing its existence from the lost & the dead.
"And the song the wind sings in its branches is one of misery & regret, of pain & passing. It callls over untilled fields & one-room shacks, across acres of corn & mists of cotton. It callls to the living & the dead, & old ghosts linger in its shade.
"Now there are lights on the horizon & cars on the road. It is July 17, 1964 & they are coming. They are coming to see the burning man."
If you enjoy classical writing successfully married to a contemporary style, then you will love The White Road & its predecessors in the Bird Series. Absolutely recommended.
Good but not his best - By: Hugh Sutherland, 20 Sep 2006 I think Connolly is fine writer & have enjoyed reading his other novels. This book did not spoil my enjoyment but I didn't think it was one of his best.
I found that Connolly seemed to go off on tangents & overcomplicate the the story at hand. Chapters on characters histories, both new & old, seemed unnecessary & felt like padding rather than integral information to the plot.
The story itself, whilst interesting & readable, just felt as if there was too much bulk & that when you finish you wonder if it reallly added anything to an otherwise excellent series.
