The woman in the woods

Review by New York Times Review

THERE'S NO mistaking a John Connolly novel, with its singular characters, eerie subject matter and socko style. All these flags are flying in the woman in the WOODS (Emily Bestler/Atria, $26.99), which finds Charlie Parker, the oddball private detective in this quirky series, thwarted by the broken link in a chain of safe havens for battered women. Normally, "they go in one end of the tunnel and come out the other, far away." Except when one of them is caught - someone like Karis Lamb, whose body is found in a shallow grave in the woods shortly after giving birth. There's no sign of her newborn child. A man named Quayle, who may very well be "the devil himself," and his "creature," creepy Pallida Mors, commit some vividly depicted atrocities in their fevered hunt for a powerful ancient book, which they believe to be in Karis's possession. Parker himself is no saint ("If there's trouble, he'll find it. If there isn't trouble, he'll make some"), and it's best to stay away from him whenever he's visited by the "black dog" of depression. But he's a savior in a world that can be merciless to those without a champion. All the kinky people in this novel, killers included, are readers. Parker's pal, Louis, who has eclectic tastes, is currently juggling Montaigne and Hemingway, and "when he wasn't reading, he was contemplating what he'd just read." Dobey, of Dobey's Diner in Cadillac, Ind., is also a rare-book dealer who subscribes to The New York Times, The New Republic, National Review and The New Yorker. What makes this dedicated reader a mensch, however, is his covert work as a principal in the underground railroad for "frightened and abused women." Connolly creates a world, somewhat real but emphatically unnatural, in which the dead commune with the living in mysterious ways. Five-year-old Daniel, for one, is no longer answering his toy telephone; after receiving frequent calls from Karis's uneasy ghost, "Daniel didn't want to talk to dead people" anymore. Well, he can always talk to us. We're right here by the phone, waiting. "GET me out of here!" Haven't we all, at one time or another, wanted to escape into a brand-new, unencumbered existence? Better keep that cri de coeur to yourself, Charlton Pettus warns in EXIT STRATEGY (Hanover Square, $26.99), or somebody could whisk you off to a new life that might not be entirely to your liking. That's what happens to Jordan Parrish, founder of a medical technology company, when his business and his marriage hit the rocks. As Jordan sees it, he can either swallow a stash of pills or call a service that will scrub away his old existence and relocate him to some not-too-hard-to-take destination like Tokyo or Paris. While Pettus captures the excitement of waking up in a strange country with a lot of money in your pocket, the thrills are largely lost on Jordan, who could use a more unequivocal love of adventure, not to mention a keener sense of humor. you CAN'T blame Charlie Donlea if the ending of his novel makes your jaw drop. The title alone - DON'T BELIEVE IT (Kensington, $26) - is fair warning that his characters are no more to be trusted than are our initial impressions of them. This much we do know: In 2007, a vacationing medical student named Julian Crist was pushed to his death from the top of Gros Piton on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Julian's girlfriend, Grace Sebold, has spent 10 years in prison for the murder when Sidney Ryan gets the green light to make a TV series about her called "The Girl of Sugar Beach." Now here comes the twist: Sidney's documentary will follow in real time her personal investigation of the murder and will end, she hopes, in Grace's exoneration. But by the eighth installment of the show, which has been wildly successful, Sidney is beginning to suspect she's been deceived, and that her great coup was actually a con job. On the one hand, her career could be mud; on the other hand, you can't argue with those ratings. uh-??. Baseball players with the Boston Red Sox are coming to no good in Pamela Wechsler's new Abby Endicott mystery, THE FENS (Minotaur, $27.99), and while a missing ballplayer isn't as serious a matter as losing the pennant to the Yankees, it still means war. Endicott, Boston's chief homicide prosecutor and the novel's narrator, is out and about in Back Bay with her boyfriend, ??, when they're accosted by a stranger toting a Glock and demanding drugs. Turns out, he's an overzealous cop, which has Abby mentally writing an outraged newspaper headline: "African-American Male Attacked by Rogue Brookline Police Officer While Walking With Assistant District Attorney." That's the sort of thing Abby has to contend with in the "enlightened" metropolis she so diligently serves. But it's nothing compared with the old-fashioned fury that sweeps through the city when Rudy Maddox, the starting catcher for the Red Sox, fails to show up at Fenway Park for opening day. Abby has tackled other touchy cases in this lively series, but the Red Sox? Come on! Marilyn STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 17, 2018]

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Review by Booklist Review

In the latest Charlie Parker mystery, the Maine PI is hired by a lawyer acquaintance to keep an eye on the police, who are digging into the disappearance of a baby who was apparently born shortly before its mother died (her body was found in the woods). Charlie soon figures out that someone else is tracking the investigation, too, but for different, darker reasons someone who, it seems, is willing to commit murder. Charlie has a lot of questions to answer: Was the dead woman murdered? If so, by whom? And why? Why is someone else apparently looking for the missing baby? Connolly's writing is as impeccable as ever, and, typical of the series, he layers on supernatural elements (here, a dead woman is evidently making telephone calls) without compromising the real-world feel of the story. No shortcuts for Connolly, no easy outs explained away by vague, otherworldly elements: he brings the same rigorous demand for believability, even a kind of realism, to the unreal components of the story as he does for the more straightforward bits. Another winner in a consistently high-quality series.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Connolly's 16th thriller featuring PI Charlie Parker (after 2017's A Game of Ghosts) perfectly blends the natural and the supernatural. After a woman's corpse is found in the woods near Parker's Maine home, attorney Moxie Castin asks him to trace the child to whom the woman gave birth shortly before her death. Castin is moved to do so by a Star of David etched into a nearby tree, which suggests to him that the dead woman was a fellow Jew. A terrifying pair-an English lawyer known only as Quayle and a remorseless assassin, Pallida Mors-are also interested in finding the infant. In addition, they have been killing members of an informal underground group protecting refugees from domestic violence, who may have helped a woman named Karis Lamb elude an abusive man. Quayle's quest involves enabling the "return of the Not-Gods, thus bringing about the end of days." Several of the victims, all of whom are fully developed characters, choose death rather than betrayal, and the end result is both unnerving and moving. Fans will agree that this is Connelly's masterpiece. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary (U.K.). (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Connolly's 16th Charlie Parker novel (after A Game of Ghosts) has all the usual genre ingredients of mystery, thriller, and horror mixed into a winding plot that leads to a haunting conclusion. A stranger is following the trail of people who helped a woman escape from her captor and is leaving a gruesome wake. Parker is investigating the identity of a body found in the Maine woods and the possibility that there is a child still out there. A little boy answers the ring of his toy phone and hears his dead mother speaking. The pieces of the puzzle fall into place as Parker finds himself both hunter and prey. Verdict Connolly portrays a chilling humanity in his characters, both good and evil, giving the book depth while keeping the reader unsettled to the end. Another great addition to a popular series that will please its many fans. [See Prepub Alert, 12/11/17.]-Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Private detective Charlie Parker faces a pair of otherworldly foes in a crime novel packed with colorful characters.In the Maine woods, rain exposes the body of a woman buried in a shallow grave. An autopsy reveals she had given birth a day or two before her death, but whether she was murdered or not is unclear. There is no sign of the child's body, and a Star of David has been carved on a nearby tree. Meanwhile, 5-year-old Daniel Weaver lives with his mother, Hollyshe is "blond," he is "ebony." She tells him a story of The Woman in the Woods, "spirited away by an ogre." Daniel's toy phone rings throughout the book, and he hears the voice of a strange woman. And in Cadillac, Indiana, an Englishman named Quayle inquires about a pregnant "mongrel [bitch]" named Karis Lamb who had passed through town. Quayle, who might be "the devil himself," has one purpose on Earth: "to locate a single book, and enable it to do its work." It's the Fractured Atlas, which he expects will change the world, replacing the "Old God" with "Not-Gods." Not knowing Karis' fate, he tracks down and kills those protecting her because she may know the book's whereabouts. His delightfully disgusting companion, Pallida Mors, has "the skin of a drowning victim, and the eyes of a doll." Attorney Moxie Castin, who calls himself "Jewish-ish," hires private detective Parker to find Karis' child, "because I want to believe that child is alive." But Parker faces frightful foes. Every character is expertly drawnParker's friends Louis and Angel are a pair of gay criminals, and Louis, who is black, blows up a Chevy truck that was flying Confederate flags. The owner, Billy Ocean, learned from his daddy not to use racial slurs, but he really hates "Negroes." Quayle hates everybody, and his racism is just a part of his overall rottenness. There's also a group of rich people called the Backers, who ages ago sold out to dark, arcane forces. Some of them think Parker is "partly divine" because he's survived so many attacks.A complicated plot, richly drawn characters, and a vein of horror will keep readers devouring the pages. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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The Woman in the Woods CHAPTER I The bar was one of the more recent additions to Portland's waterfront, although the term "recent" was relative given the rapid pace of development in the city. Parker wondered if at some point every person reached an age where he or she prayed for a pause to progress, although often it seemed to him that progress was just so much window dressing, because people tended to remain much as they had always been. Still, he wished folks would occasionally leave the windows as they were, for a while at least. The presence of the bar was indicated solely by a sign on the sidewalk, required because the establishment was set back from the street on the first floor of an old warehouse, and would otherwise have been difficult, if not impossible, to find. Perhaps this was why it appealed to Louis. Given the opportunity, Louis might even have dispensed with the sign entirely, and supplied details of the bar's location only to those whose company he was prepared to tolerate, which meant that maybe five people in the world would have been burdened with the responsibility of keeping it in business. No such tactics were required on this night to offer Louis the peace he desired. Only a handful of customers were present: a young couple at a corner table, two older men eating burgers at the bar, and Parker and Louis. Parker had just been served a glass of wine. Louis was drinking a martini, very dry. It might not have been his first, but with Louis it was always difficult to tell. "How is he?" Parker asked. "Confused. In pain." Days earlier, Louis's partner, Angel, had been relieved of a tumor the size of an egg in a New York hospital, along with a length of his large intestine. The procedure hadn't gone entirely well, and the recuperation period would be difficult, involving chemotherapy sessions every three weeks for the next two years, while the threat of ancillary growths remained. The call to inform Parker of Louis's presence in the city of Portland had therefore come as a surprise. Parker had intended to travel down to New York to visit Angel and offer Louis whatever support he could. Instead, Louis was sitting in a Portland bar while his partner lay in a hospital bed, medicated up to his eyeballs. But then, Louis and Angel were unique unto themselves: criminals, lovers, killers of men, and crusaders for a cause that had no name beyond Parker's own. They kept to their particular rhythm as they walked through life. "And how are you?" asked Parker. "Angry," said Louis. "Concerned and frightened, but mostly angry." Parker said nothing, but sipped his wine and listened to a ship calling in the night. "I didn't expect to be back here so soon," Louis continued, as though in answer to Parker's unvoiced question, "but there were some things I needed from the condo. And anyway, the New York apartment just didn't feel right without Angel next to me. It was like the walls were closing in. How can that be? How can a place seem smaller when there's one person missing from it? Portland's different. It's less his place. So I visited with him this afternoon, then took a car straight to LaGuardia. I wanted to escape." He sipped his cocktail. "And I can't go to the hospital every day. I hate seeing him that way." He turned to look at Parker. "So talk to me about something else." Parker examined the world through the filter of his wineglass. "The Fulcis are considering buying a bar," he said. Paulie and Tony Fulci were Portland's answer to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, assuming Tweedledum and Tweedledee were heavily--if unsuccessfully--medicated for psychosis, built like armored trucks, and prone to outbreaks of targeted violence that were often, but not always, the result of severe provocation, the Fulcis' definition of which was fluid, and ranged from rudeness and poor parking to assault and attempted murder. Louis almost spat out his drink. "You're fucking kidding. They haven't told me anything about it." "Maybe they were afraid you might choke--and not without justification." "But a bar is a business. With patrons. You know, regular human beings." "Well, they're banned from almost every drinking hole in this city, with the exception of the Bear, and that's only because Dave Evans doesn't want to hurt their feelings. Also, they help keep bad elements at bay, although Dave sometimes struggles to imagine an element worse than the Fulcis themselves. But Paulie says that they're worried about falling into a rut, and they have some money from an old bequest that they're thinking of investing." "A bequest? What kind of bequest?" "Probably the kind made at gunpoint. Seems they've been sitting on it for years." "Just letting it cool down a little, huh?" "Cool down a lot." "They planning on fronting this place themselves, or would they actually like to attract a clientele?" "They're looking for a stooge." "They'll need to find someone crazier than they are." "I believe that's proving an obstacle to progress." "Would you front a bar run by the Fulcis?" "At least it would be guaranteed free of trouble." "No, it would be guaranteed free of outside trouble." "If they manage to open, you'll be obliged to support them. They'll be very unhappy otherwise. You know how fond they are of you and Angel." "Which is your fault." "I simply facilitated an introduction." "Like rats facilitated the introduction of the plague." "Tut-tut." Louis finished his drink and raised his glass for another. "You know," he said, "that news has cheered me up some." "I thought it might." "You working on anything?" "Just some paper for Moxie. Routine stuff." Moxie Castin was one of Portland's more colorful legal figures. With his ill-fitting suits and huckster manner, Moxie appeared completely untrustworthy, but in Parker's experience only trustworthy individuals were prepared to embrace a livery that suggested the opposite. Moxie paid well and on time, which made him a rara avis not only in legal circles but in most other circles as well. Finally, Moxie was privy to most--although not all--of Parker's affairs, including the discreet arrangement whereby the Federal Bureau of Investigation paid a retainer into Parker's account each month in return for consultancy services. It was not a state of affairs of which Moxie unconditionally approved, although at least Parker also recognized it for the devil's bargain it was. "You look tired for a man dealing with routine stuff," said Louis. "I haven't been sleeping well." "Bad dreams?" "I'm not sure I can always tell the difference between dreams and reality. Waking sometimes seems as bad as sleeping." Parker was already recognizing signs of the onset of a depression that had shadowed him even in adolescence, but had begun to trouble him more deeply since the gun attack that almost killed him. He knew that soon he would have to seek seclusion. He would want--even need--to be alone, because it was at those times that his dead daughter most often appeared to him. "Angel said something to me once." Parker waited, and it was as though Louis had heard his thoughts, or had glimpsed the flickering whiteness of a lost child in Parker's eyes. "He said he thought you saw Jennifer, that she spoke to you." "Jennifer's dead." "With respect, that's not the point." "Like I said, I find it hard to tell what are dreams and what are not." "You know, I don't think you find it hard at all." Slow time passed before Louis spoke again. "I used to dream of my father." Parker knew that Louis's father had fallen into the hands of bigoted, violent men who hanged him from a tree before setting him alight. Many years later Louis returned for those responsible, and burned the tree on which his father had died. "He would come to me in my sleep," said Louis, "wreathed in fire, and his mouth would move as he tried to speak, except nothing ever came out, or nothing I could understand. I used to wonder what he was trying to say. In the end, I figured he was warning me. I think he was telling me not to go looking for vengeance, because he knew what I'd become if I did. "So I dreamed him, and I knew I was dreaming him, but when I woke I'd smell him in the room, all shit and gasoline, all smoke and charred meat. I'd tell myself I was imagining it, that these were all smells I knew from before, and the force of the dream was just tricking my mind into putting them together. But it was strong, so strong: it would be in my hair and on my skin for the rest of the day, and sometimes other folks picked up on it too. They'd comment, and I wouldn't have an answer for them, or none they'd want to hear, and maybe none I'd want to hear either. "It would frighten me. Frightened me for most of my life. Angel knew, but no one else. He smelled it on me, smelled it after my nightmares when I woke up sweating beside him in bed, and I didn't want to lie to him, because I've never lied to him. So I told him, just like I'm telling you, and he believed me, just like I know you believe me. "My father doesn't come to me so much anymore, but when he does I'm no longer troubled. You know why? Because of you. Because I've seen things with you, experienced things that made me understand I wasn't crazy, and I wasn't alone. More than that, there's a consolation to it, to all of this. I think that's why I came up here tonight, and why I called you. If I lose Angel, I know I'll find him again. I'll tear this world apart before I do, and maybe I'll die burning like my father burned, but that won't be the end for Angel and me. He'll wait for me on the other side, and we'll go together into whatever waits. This I know because of you. I've hurt a lot of people, some that didn't deserve what came to them and some that did, although the distinction meant nothing to me then, and doesn't mean a whole lot now. I could have questioned what I did, but I chose not to. I have blood on my hands, and I'll shed more before I'm done with this life, but I'll shed it because I'm following a different path, your path, and I'll sacrifice myself because I have to, because it's my reparation. In return, I'll be allowed to stay with Angel forever. That's the deal. You tell that to your daughter next time you see her. You tell her to bring it to her god." Parker stared hard at him. "Just how many cocktails have you had?" The stillness seemed to encompass the entire bar. All others vanished. It was only these two, and these two alone. And Louis smiled. Excerpted from The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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