The publisher’s materials that accompany the review copies of A BOOK OF BONES hasten to note that we are celebrating 20 years of Charlie Parker, the one-of-a-kind creation of author John Connolly. Occasionally I will pick up a book by a new author and get a sort of tingling that tells me it’s a good one. That’s exactly what I felt when I laid my hands on EVERY DEAD THING, the first Parker (and Connolly) novel, and I was equally impressed with each subsequent installment in the series. That said, this latest entry is special, even when stacked against its older siblings.

Charlie Parker is a physically and emotionally damaged private investigator living in Maine. His wife and older daughter were horribly murdered in an opening salvo against him by forces of a very old and almost unspeakable evil whose presence and vague motives have unfolded slowly and frightfully over the course of the past two decades. From time to time, Parker and his younger daughter communicate with the spirit of his older daughter, who occasionally aids him. He also has a small assemblage of friends (first among these being a pair named Louis and Angel) and grudging associates who are of varying degrees of use. Each story has been fearfully and wonderfully told.

"While Connolly is a master at bringing newcomers up to speed on what has unfolded, those who previously had not visited Charlie Parker’s world will feel compelled to go back and read what has gone before. Please do so."

At the conclusion of THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS, an attorney named Quayle and his very deadly associate, Mors, had barely escaped Parker with their lives. Quayle is on a quest to assemble a document known as The Fractured Atlas, which will bring on an apocalypse of sorts. Quayle and Mors have absconded to Europe. Parker, accompanied by a still-wounded Louis and a cancer-ridden Angel, is in pursuit. Quayle continues his quest while murder victims are strategically placed in sacrificial poses at notable locations. Parker is a couple of steps behind but gains ground in a chase that runs from Arizona to Amsterdam to England, with jumps to various ports of call in between.

It is in England, however, where the focal point of A BOOK OF BONES lies. The country provides a rich soil for legends and folklore from which a good deal of the book germinates, and frighteningly so. Connolly includes enough references to matters outside of the novel’s four corners to give anyone with even a modicum of historical curiosity a plethora of wondrous distraction. For anyone else, his superlative writing is more than enough to carry one through to the terrifying conclusion, where any character can be --- and is --- consigned to the choir invisible.

A BOOK OF BONES is a conclusion --- but not an end --- to the extended story arc that Connolly has carried over his past several novels. More is coming. And there is that backlist. While Connolly is a master at bringing newcomers up to speed on what has unfolded, those who previously had not visited Charlie Parker’s world will feel compelled to go back and read what has gone before. Please do. You will not be sorry, even when you imagine hearing a tapping at your window.