John Connolly - Every Dead Thing

The Travelling Man is on the move. Few will survive the journey.
Former New York detective Charlie Parker is a man shattered by the brutal killings of his wife and child.
The Travelling Man is an artist of death, making human bodies his canvas and taking faces as his prize.
Now another girl is missing...

I was very excited about John Connolly after reading his "Book of Lost Things", a smart and very well written fantasy novel. I had heard about his Charlie Parker thrillers but didn't really get around to picking one up and reading it (I think it's mostly due to the fact that I've been obsessed with Richard Laymon lately). I eventually bought about 5 of his 8 Charlie Parker books and just finished "Every Dead Thing", his first Charlie Parker novel (named after the american saxophonist and composer).

The book starts out with a bang, the death of Charlie Parker's wife and young daughter at the hands of an individual called The Travelling Man. What's striking from the beginning (and it will hold up throughout the rest of the book) is that Connolly does not forbear from depicting very graphical murders (especially involving children and young adults). He also touches on things that are hardly mainstream in books: child rape, child mutilation etc. so this probably isn't a book for people that find such matters distasteful. I do not, however, so I kept on reading. The plot eventually splits in two (I actually enjoyed the secondary plot more, about the dissapearance of Catherine Demeter, than I did the main plot, about the Travelling Man) and, eventually, all will fall into place (as it usually does and you just know everything is connected, more or less).

Moving on to the characters now. Connolly wrote Charlie Parker as a depressed (for obvious reasons) former alcoholic with a sharp tongue. His humor is quite sparkling at times and he does manage to be a likeable anti-hero (the first comparison coming to mind was that of Spencer Grant from Koontz's "Dark Rivers of The Heart" - although, Spencer Grant was not an alcoholic with a sense of humor and Charlie Parker is sans chien). The supporting cast are an interesting bunch as well: Rachel Wolfe (Charlie Parker's psychologist friend), Angel and Louis (the gay assasins pair), Woolrich (Charlie Parker's long time FBI friend). There are some characters that are one-dimensional but I wasn't really bothered by that, as they helped move along the plot in an effective way.

The setting of the novel was something that attracted me from the beginning: part of it takes place in New Orleans (and sorroundings). Connolly's New Orleans is not far from the New Orleans we've come to know in movies such as Cat People (the hyper-sexualized 1982 version), Angel Heart and even Lynch's Wild at Heart. I have no clue if New Orleans was ever like that but I would love to visit it in its pre-Katrina years.

Connolly's prose is gripping from the start and his humorous burts lighten up the mood just at the right times. I do have some gripes with the book, though. The plot twist is a bit too obvious, the final showdown is rather mild and the Travelling Man does not really travel that much (but perhaps it's an allegory that is completely lost to me). Even as it is, I highly recommend this novel and I'll be returning to Charlie Parker once I'm done with what I'm currently reading and I'll most definitely have a complete John Connolly book collection in the near future.