John Connolly - The Killing Kind (2002)
Detective Charlie "Bird" Parker has been featured in some of the best, most disturbing mysteries to come out in recent years. This time around we find him investigating the supposed suicide of young Grace Peltier. He has been hired by Senator Jack Mercier, who thinks -- as does her father -- that there is far more behind Grace's death than first appears.
During the course of investigation, a mass grave is uncovered in the chilly woods of Northern Maine. It is revealed to be the resting-place of the Aroostook Baptists, a religious community that disappeared mysteriously many years earlier. Parker soon comes to believe that the two events are all part of the same mystery; one connected to a shady organization known as The Fellowship. It emerges that just before Grace died, she stole something from The Fellowship -- and it is an article that they are willing to kill, and kill again, to get back.
Soon, "Bird" and his two sidekicks, Angel and Louis, will be pitted against one of the most chilling villains fiction has ever produced: the Fellowship's enforcer, an arachnophile known as Mr Pudd. He will drag them down, further into the bowels of evil than they have ever been before, struggling to survive.
The Killing Kind is a phenomenal book. It is mercifully less overburdened with the many characters and multitude of plots that hampered Connolly's enjoyable debut, Every Dead Thing. Since then his books have only improved, getting better with every one, hitting an elegant crescendo with his next book, The White Road. The prose is beautiful and incredibly evocative. There are certain passages which stop you in your tracks, inspiring wonder and awe. The characters are a superb bunch. Charlie Parker is a great hero, human and vulnerable. Louis and Angel provide some well-needed comic (albeit dark) relief.
The two villains, the chilly Reverend Faulkner and the simply terrifying Mr Pudd, are the most chilling evil duo I have ever encountered. They are, purely and simply, evil incarnate. They are memorable and haunting, especially the demonic Mr Pudd. The image of how Alison Black met her death (which occurs in the prologue) at the hand of hundreds of spiders turned my stomach, and will remain with me forever.
The plot is equally outstanding; thrilling, yet not too complex. The Killing Kind is a page-turning, exciting read. I find it hard to praise this book adequately. You simply have to read it.
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