Book review: A Song Of Shadows

By John Connolly

The latest in Dublin-born Connolly’s Charlie Parker series starts with the private eye recovering from a gun attack that almost killed him and, by the end of more than 400 pages of this dark thriller, he is not much better off.

With the sort of luck that has kept him in cases for more than a decade, Parker’s move to a small town in the US state of Maine to recuperate coincides with a series of brutal murders which seem to have their beginnings back in the horrors of World War II.

Connolly maintains the plot’s pace expertly and stocks the story with a cast of grotesque gangsters and killers who give the book more than a hint of horror fiction that makes its stand out in the over-crowded crime genre.

This is a dark tale told with a light touch that will send many of it readers chasing down the other dozen books in the series.