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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Breathtaking. Literally., 23 Feb 2002
By A Customer
This is the best of the four. Every Dead Thing was a good read, but overcomplicated with too many characters and plots. Dark Hollow was much better. ANd even that warranted five stars. Then came The Killing Kind which was stupendously excellent. The best thriller of 2001. Even better than Dark Hollow. But now comes The White Road. And it's even better. John Connolly's prose is simply wonderful. It is superbly lyrical, and his descriptions are superbs. I was in awe when he described a world as being "painted on glass". He has many sentences like that, which stop you in your tracks and make you realise how truly [darkly] beautiful his writing is. Charlie Parker is back, and fighting for his life, and taht of his wife. the demonic preacher Faulkner is out for revenge, at the same as Parker is investigating the rape of the young daughter of the wealthy Earl Larousse. Accused is her black boyfriend, Atys Jones. But deep in the swamps something lurks...something connected to a long ago crime, and it wants vengeance... This is a stunning novel. The darkness of it is haunting, and its complexity astounding, but JOhn COnnolly manages to tell you the tale in an easy to undderstand way. It is truly chilling. The way Connolly blends subtle elements of horror in with a crime novel is awe-inspiring. And with this book he has created his most dark plot yet, yet it seems to contain a tiny snub of light shining through at points. At times the darkness becomes too much, and the light disappears as if gone forever, but at others, it reappears, burning brightly anew, and you can hold out some hope for Charlie Parker and his quest. I cannot praise this novel highly enough. The resolution, and the way in which it is all brough together is brilliant, and the final solution shocking. Connolly, with this book and the last created possibly the most chilling villain in the religious fanatic Reverend Aaron Faulkner, and in this book he is even more chilling than before. He simply oozes evil. This time, he is out to get Parker, and he is going to use killer Cyrus Nairn, recently released from the wing of his prison, to execute that revenge. It is a truly chilling book, with a wonderful plot, and a colourful cast of characters, including Angel and Louis, who are back in full force. This time we learn a little about why they are who they are. From the excellent prologue to the epilogue this book is a sucess on every level. Connolly just gets better and better. If you haven't read him yet, you're missing out.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST FICTION SERIES BEING WRITTEN TODAY!!, 18 April 2002
By A Customer
If you enjoyed EVERY DEAD THING, DARK HOLLOW, and THE KILLING KIND, then you’re going to love John Connolly’s newest Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker novel, THE WHITE ROAD. It begins a few months following where THE KILLING KIND left off. Charlie and a pregnant, Rachel, are still together, living in a new home and contemplating the birth of their child. The Reverend Aaron Faulkner is soon to be tried for the murders of his congregation, as well as the deaths of several other people. When Charlie gets a phone call from an old friend, Elliot Norton, who’s now a lawyer in South Carolina and is representing a black man who has been wrongfully accused of murdering his white girlfriend, he finds himself hesitant on leaving Rachel alone while he goes to help. The word is that there isn’t enough evidence to convict Faulkner and that he may be released from prison in the immediate future. If so, neither Charlie nor Rachel will be safe. The good reverend believes in payback, and he intends to achieve revenge for the death of his murderous son and daughter by having the detective and his woman killed in the most vicious manner. Still, Charlie can’t ignore the plea for help from his friend in South Carolina. Arranging for Rachel to be watched, he flies down to the southern state and step into a boiling caldron filled with hate, racism, death, the Dixie Mafia, the Klan, and an evil force that wants retribution against him for the deaths of its many followers. As Charlie puts his life on the line by investigating the murder of Marianne Larousse and the long, dark history that has existed between her wealthy family and the family of her boyfriend, Atys Jones, he sets in motion a series of events that will lead to a blood bath on the grandest scale. Even Louis and Angel may not be good enough to save Charlie this time around, or rescue Rachel from the evil that’s stalking her back in Maine. To save the woman he loves, himself, and to right a terrible wrong, Charlie will have to travel the White Road and face the entity that waits for him at the end of it. No one will walk away unscathed. THE WHITE ROAD is a winner in every sense of the word. It’s written with such poetry, such honesty and truth to character, that I’m left in awe of Mr. Connolly’s craftsmanship as an author. As only the Irish can, he writes with an elegance of style that’s simply a pleasure to read. I even find myself reading aloud at times, soaking in the beauty of his words and sentences that so clearly bring to life the characters of his books. Charlie Parker is now ready to start over with Rachel and his unborn child, putting the past behind him, hoping that the spirits will leave him and his family alone. Louis and Angel are on a quest for vengeance. Louis is determined to kill the men who destroyed his family so many years ago in Georgia, while Angel still has to come to grips with the torture he experienced at the hands of Aaron Faulkner’s son, Mr. Pudd. Angel understands that no one is safe unless the Reverend Faulkner is finally put down like the mad dog he is, and he’s willing to do it, if Charlie won’t. Also, except for maybe Thomas Harris, no other author is able to capture the pure essence of evil that lurks deep within the darkness of humanity as well as John Connolly does. The characters of Cyrus Nairn and Mr. Kittim will cause goose bumps to rise on your arms, and the spirit of Mr. Pudd and his recluse spiders are always in the background. Like Mr. Connolly’s three previous novels, this one is a journey into the dark night of the soul. It will have you questioning the way we treat others who are different; yet, at the same time, it will also show the goodness in people who are willing to stand up and fight the evil that seeks to destroy us. As I understand it, THE WHITE ROAD will be the last Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker novel for the next year or so. Mr. Connolly wants to do one or two stand-alone novels before continuing with the series that is quickly making him a household name around the world. Read THE WHITE ROAD, savor its sharp twists and turns, its edge-of-your-seat suspense, its carefully crafted multi-story lines, its in-depth characters; then, cross your fingers and pray that John Connolly will show mercy on his fans and not let us wait too long before Charlie Parker once again returns. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic prose and relentless murder, 1 Nov 2006
It has taken four attempts, but now I am convinced that John Connolly is the real thing, a writer of extraordinary talent and 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 and The Killing Kind) and he just gets better and 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 and private investigator Parker, his wonderful back-up crew Louis and Angel, and his girlfriend Rachel. Apart from them, almost everyone else dies - and 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 and 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 all, for Connolly's writing is for the most part wonderfully stylish, his sense of imagery masterful and his research into his given subjects - be they people, locations or wildlife - is simply awesome.
This is Connolly's tightest and most coherent novel yet, with an unwavering plot-line that for once does not include any mafia figures - possibly because he killed them all off in the previous three novels, I guess. We learn, at last, of the makings of Louis and 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, and initially 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 and the accused that dates back generations, and eventually Bird finds that there are some very dark cover-ups, some in the present and 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 and 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 and usually involuntary ability to communicate with the dead. This theme is taken to a deeper level in The White Road, and to an extent it serves to explain the reasons for what has gone on before, in Maine and in New Orleans, and 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 tall among his peers, and 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, and from each node springs a cluster of small green flowers. The flowers smell as if they are decomposing, festering, and 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 and saprophyte: the one fuelled by the lifeblood of the tree, the other drawing its existence from the lost and the dead.
"And the song the wind sings in its branches is one of misery and regret, of pain and passing. It calls over untilled fields and one-room shacks, across acres of corn and mists of cotton. It calls to the living and the dead, and old ghosts linger in its shade.
"Now there are lights on the horizon and cars on the road. It is July 17, 1964 and 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 and its predecessors in the Bird Series. Absolutely recommended.
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