The latest issue of Phantasmagoria magazine includes the following review I wrote of Jhn Connolly's latest Charlie Parker novel, The Children of Eve.
By John Connolly
Published by Hodder & Stoughton, 2025
This is the latest volume in the ongoing saga of Charlie Parker, whose private eye investigations all too often bring him into far too close a contact with dark forces. Nor is this any different.
It starts innocuously enough with Parker being asked to find avant garde artist Zetta Nadeau’s missing boyfriend, an ex-army veteran who has abruptly disappeared, presumably having gone into hiding after carrying out a mysterious job. As Parker’s investigation begins he discovers that, disturbingly, the boyfriend, Wyatt Riggins had been involved in something more sinister than his girlfriend suspected, the abduction from South America of a group of children, stolen from cartel boss, Blas Urrea, who wants them back. Complicating matters, the children appear to have been stolen on the orders of an American mob boss who had been working with Urrea till their relationship soured. Both sides are now using dangerous heavies either to find the children or hide them securely, resulting in a rising body count and some particularly sadistic murders, including hearts being cut out of bodies while their owners are still alive – that is till the hearts have been torn free and partially devoured.
It's a typically dark tale from John Connolly who is a master at creating unforgettable villains and intricately conceived stories, within which one atrocity will soon be topped by another. Charlie Parker, and his friends Louis and Angel, are often tested to the brink, never more so than in this tale, with its overtones of something even darker and more ominous lurking above and beyond the story itself, which will only reveal itself in some future volume.
Splendidly well written, this is yet another horrific page-turner (quite literally), and I cannot wait for the next.
