The White Road: A Charlie Parker Thriller

As I said, the author inserts paragraphs using poetic prose with polished wording mixed with plain action language.
Anticipation and suspense have to be worked better as well as the after effect of twist and turns to provoke the anxiety of the reader to grab the book, not too much effort devoted to this point
Characters are slowly crafted but swiftly killed as book is coming to an end, there are just too many, as well as events surrounding them
Elements from the surreal and fantastic worlds blend with reality so some chapters get difficult to follow and in the end to understand what the author had in mind

Charlie "Bird" Parker has been the hero of four mysteries by John Connolly now, and this latest is in some ways the strongest of the bunch. Parker is a detective with an ability to see murdered people, and talk to them. He regards this more as a curse than a gift: they usually look to him for vengeance against those who killed them.
In the current installment, Parker is summoned to South Carolina by a lawyer friend to investigate a murder. The supposed killer is a young black man; his victim a young white woman with whom he was having an affair, and whose family is very wealthy. Even in the 21st century, such an interracial affair is frowned upon, and when she winds up dead, the young man's life is in immediate danger. Parker is needed to investigate, and of course he'll have to bring along his gay sidekicks Louis and Angel, a burglar and a hitman, both supposedly retired.
Connolly is a strange writer. The prose is almost poetic, the descriptions and philosophy of the writing is dark and elegaic, almost too descriptive. The characters are interesting, especially the villains. In this one, Kittim is especially repulsive and terrifying. In addition, there's a well-drawn small character who is initially not too positive, but turns out for the better in the end.
I enjoyed this book. It has characters from some of Connolly's previous books, and I would recommend reading the four books in order, but this is a worthy addition to the series.

There is some continuity between The White Road and Connolly's previous book The Killing Kind as Charlie Parker is now settling into a new house and life with his pregnant partner Rachel in Maine. There is also some follow through with the Faulkner character from the Killing Kind. The White Road takes place mostly in South Carolina where an old crime is coming back to the surface and Charlie Parker heads south at the instigation of an old friend to help him with a case he has. Although Angel and Louis do not feature as much in this book we do do learn much about their background and get a much more detailed insight into their characters even though they do not play as much of a role in The White Road. If you liked Connolly's previous books you will love this latest offering.

Can Connollys novels get any better than this? Since reading "Dark Hollow", i have devoured everything, mostly the C. Parker series, that John Connolly has on the market. I cannot believe that ive spent all these years without a clue to the treasure author which is Connolly. Can it get any better than "White Road"? Im almost afraid to find out but "Black Angel" is now in my sights.
One thing about his novels which he pulls no punches about are the villains. They are about as evil and despicable as they come and each so far has been unique in the way they dispense pain and death to their respective victims. These are baddies you want to see "get theirs" and Connolly ensures that they do, violently and brutally.
He doesnt go for hollywood endings, just blunt, forward, and justifiable.
These days, while authors just like to impress readers by how many pretty and fancy words they can come up with (King, Koontz) while ignoring a decent story and plot, Connolly outdoes them all, using that poetic language to write rousing, violent but enthralling novels.

Long live Charlie Parker, Angel and Louis. They just dont make em any badder than this bunch.

THE WHITE ROAD is John Connolly's fourth novel featuring Charlie Parker. Parker is a former NYPD detective with a troubled past that includes a slain family. He's now living in Maine and working sporadically as a PI. The novel, like all Parker novels, is mostly a first-person narrative told from Parker's point of view. The Parker books simultaneously pay homage to hardboiled noir fiction (Hammett, Chandler, Burke, MacDonald, etc.) while still maintaining a high degree of freshness and originality.

In this installment, Parker helps out an old friend named Elliot Norton. Norton, a lawyer down in South Carolina, is defending a young black man who is accused of murdering a young white woman from a rich family. He's convinced that his client didn't do it, but he's having trouble getting any local assistance, so he guilt-trips Parker into coming down from Maine to dig into the case. At the same time, back in Maine, the Reverend Faulkner, villain of the previous Parker novel, THE KILLING KIND, is doing his best to get bailed out of prison, with the assistance of a Klan/Nazi-type organization, which Parker also runs into while in South Carolina. Working for the racist group is a mysterious sadist called Kittim, who is one of Connolly's trademark deformed villains - in Kittim's case, he suffers from a strange skin disorder. In addition, this book gives us some more background information on Angel and Louis, Parker's interracial/gay/criminal sidekick couple. Finally Parker's relationship with psychologist Rachel Wolfe continues - she now lives with him in Maine and is pregnant. That may sound like a convoluted plot setup, but rest assured that Connolly pulls it all together in a satisfying way that does make logical sense.

As always, Connolly writes extremely well - not just the narrative, but the settings, characterizations, and dialogue are all well-done, which is always extra impressive as Connolly is an Irishman who writes primarily about American characters in American settings.

Besides just plain old good writing, a couple of other things that help his Parker novels stand out from the herd of the detective fiction genre. One is Connolly's fascination with deformed or otherwise physically abnormal villains - many of his bad guys have something wrong with them externally that reflects their inner evil (such as this book's Kittim.) The other is a genre-blending tendency to mix supernatural/horror elements in with the standard hardboiled crime conventions, which I for one absolutely love. WHITE ROAD is the most overtly spiritual novel yet in the series, though later installments arguably increase that element even more. Parker often sees dead people, especially victims of violent crimes, though whether he's genuinely seeing apparitions or if they're just some sort of hallucination is never explicitly stated. Connolly is also fascinated with the idea and imagery of fallen angels, and he weaves it into his tales expertly, though with varying degrees of subtlety.

If you like hardboiled crime novels and you're not a mystery genre purist who's going to be bothered by having some horror elements mixed in, you'll love this series - though I recommend reading them in order (EVERY DEAD THING, DARK HOLLOW, and THE KILLING KIND before this book) for maximum enjoyment and understanding. I just finished reading this book for the third or fourth time, if that tells you anything about how much I like the Parker series. I'm eagerly awaiting my pre-ordered copy of Connolly's latest, THE REAPERS, which is coming out later this month, and to kill time I'm rereading all the preceding Parker books.

The fourth Charlie Parker book relies more heavily on the actions of the previous novels than any of the others so far in the series. Obviously, I personally prefer to read any series in order, but Connolly is careful to mask much of the previous plots so a reader can pick up at any point. But in this installment, this is not really the case as much of the action is heavily dependent on the climatic action of this book's predecessor, [[ASIN:B000FC0QLQ The Killing Kind: A Thriller (Charlie Parker Book 3)]].

The honeycomb world becomes more riddled with holes and in these spaces, the darkness overlaps. Connolly continues to incorporate American history (albeit of the darker shadows of history) within the narration that adds to the richness and complexity of the overall plot. This one particularly relies on this past. It's an exciting read overall - though the ending feels a bit abrupt. I like that the scope of the perspective expands here to incorporate more about Louis and Angel (to be honest, I had completely forgotten how they had met, so re-reading this has been added fun). It's an excellent series and this one is a great addition to it - and I appreciate how more supernatural elements are creeping in.

Original Review: Good. Not as good as the previous or the first, but better than the second. In many ways, this one was a continuation of the book before - [[ASIN:0743453344 The Killing Kind]]. It wrapped up some loose ends, but left some new loose ends. It was easier to figure out the mystery behind this one. And there was a definitively supernatural element to this one... more so than the ones before. Generally, I liked it.

John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968, and 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 and won the 2000 Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel. It also introduced Charlie Parker, a former police officer and PI. "The White Road" was first published in 2002, and 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 and lives with his dog (a friendly soul called Walter) and his girlfriend, Rachel. The couple have been together for around a year and a half, and - 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 and daughter were killed three years previously.

Cassie Blythe, a Portland girl, has been missing for six years and is presumed dead by the police. Her parents still hope she might be alive, even if they don't really believe it. With the case stalled at the police department, they had been employing a PI called 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 called Bear to claim he'd seen the girl - alive - in Mexico. Unfortunately for him, nobody buys it and Charlie takes over the case.

However, a phone call 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, and wants Charlie's help with a case. Norton is representing a black teenager called Atys Jones, who has been accused of raping his white girlfriend and 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 exceptionally rich and influential man, and there is a real fear that Jones may not live to stand trial. Norton wants some help moving Jones to a safe house and checking the evidence but can't find a PI in South Carolina willing to help him. After some initial concerns, Charlie eventually 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 and 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 and Louis, who have a very close working relationship, don't try to keep things legal if they don't believe someone deserves to die - and 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 - mentally and physically - they will wait for the chance to finish the job themselves.

This is the first book by Connelly I read, and 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 and 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 and I did enjoy the book - more than enough for me to look into reading more by Connelly.

with characterizations.

In this novel, the fourth in the Charlie "Bird" Parker series, the reader gets to find out much more about Louis and Angel than has ever been revealed before.

Prior to this novel, what the reader knew about the relationship between the two men and Parker was that Parker had basically saved Angel's life while he (Angel) was in prison and that because of all that Parker had done for Angel, he now had the undying loyalty and support of not just the "diminutive ex-burglar," but also of that ex-burglar's partner, Louis. With friends like these two, Parker doesn't need much other backup.

But in this novel, what we know of the two men upon whom Parker relies more than any other human beings, we discover what brought Louis and Angel together (hilarious stuff), and we also get to see a bit more of their relationship (I do mean "a bit"; Connolly isn't likely to give us a whole lot of description of gentleness or couple-type descriptions involving these two men). We get Angel's background as well as Louis's, and that means we can finally see these two men as more rounded characters. I'm glad of that, as they're two of my all-time favorite characters from ANY series.

Okay--don't read further if you've not read the novels before this one, as I'm going to refer to action from the book just before this one in pretty specific terms.

This novel picks up months after the action of [[ASIN:0743456378 The Killing Kind]], the novel in which Angel was taken by the madman villain, Faulkner. In that novel, Angel was brutalized by the man and his son and also had a patch of his skin viciously removed. At the start of this novel, he is still recovering from that debilitating injury, and trying to deal with Parker's decision not to kill Faulkner when he had the chance.

This, to me, made for a really intriguing novel. Angel and Louis have always backed Parker up, and the banter between the three men (as well as the mostly-unspoken but definitely clear bond between them) makes it easy to think of them as a team, but they're not, at least not when it comes to morality. That becomes clear when Parker chooses not to kill Angel's tormentor just minutes after a wounded Angel has killed Pudd, the man choking the life out of Parker. In essence, the moral distinctions between Parker and his two friends are never clearer than they are here. They're clear to the reader and they're clear to Angel as well, which makes for a very interesting storyline as he does what he needs to do in order to regain his sanity in the face of not only physical pain (from skin grafts, etc.) but also the return of his past, a past which he had succeeded in mentally pushing away through his partnership with Louis, which allowed him to feel, for the first time in his life, as though he might not be a victim any longer.

It's a measure of Mr. Connolly's skill that this part of the storyline is interwoven quite wonderfully with themes of racism and retribution. And Parker's relationship with a pregnant Rachel is skillfully handled here as well. I don't mean to minimize her importance in all these novels. His relationship with her is certainly one that leads to interesting moral conflicts for Parker. He is still so. . .I dunno. . .damaged by what happened to his first wife and child, and while he knows more strongly than he ever has that their deaths were not his fault, he is still haunted by them, and his relationship with Rachel continues to be affected by that.

I hope you'll pick this one up. But hey--pick them all up! You can't go wrong.

This fourth in the Charlie Parker series has all the evil characters we've come to expect from a Parker outing, as well as an enormous amount of historical (both real and fictional) background on racial abuses in the south. While the writing is lyrical and the characters are fully fleshed, The White Road doesn't have quite the power of the previous books. The plot hinges on a motive (which I will not give away) that didn't ring true or believable to me for bringing Parker into the case of Atys Jones's forthcoming murder trial. There's plenty of activity in swampy settings; Louis and Angel come to the forefront this time out. And there's enough torture, gore, murder and mayhem to satisfy readers who've come to expect a thoroughly disturbing adventure from Connolly. The glue that is intended to hold the plot together is a little thin, leaving cracks and gaps in the whole. Entertaining but not quite up to the very high standard the author has set with his previous books.

This, the fourth in Connolly's Charlie Parker series, does not have the all-pervading miasma of the earlier novels, despite what others have said, and the images of ravens as angels of death is a bit awkward, but this is still an incredibly compelling novel. In tone, I would say it is more like Ross MacDonald as compared to the James Ellroy feel of the earlier novels. Is Parker finally laying his demons to rest? It is hard to say, but it appears as if Connolly is tying up some loose ends, though I personally would like to see the series continue if it can keep up the level of quality. Readers unfamiliar with Connolly should be forewarned that there are characters from earlier novels, and that they made need to keep a notepad handy to keep track of the labrynthine plot and numerous characters.