Every Dead Thing – John Connolly

Books have always held a unique position in my life. I’ve not always been able to articulate why that’s the case or even how I know it’s true. It just seemed self evident. The pleasure I derive from reading is distinct from that which I get from music, exercise or any of my other interests.

Amongst the pleasure, however, is a truth of which I’ve been painfully aware. Reading a book for me is a one-time experience. The most brilliant and inspiring pieces of literature I’ve ever read get completed once. After putting the book down the spell is broken. I can recommend, discuss and quote from the book. But what I won’t do is read it a second time.

Maybe that’s not quite correct. I may read it a second time – I just won’t enjoy it as much.

Music can grow on you and supply endless enjoyment. Exercise can reward you for your repetition and stubbornness. Not literature. I may tease out some nuggets of wisdom, or pick up on a subtly that I’d missed the first time around. But the story and the lives of the characters is never as powerful or as compelling on a subsequent reading.

There’s a second factor that compounds this. Like music, you’re most likely to be introduced to the artist through their best or most widely known work. You’ll be introduced to Frank Herbert through Dune or to Bram Stoker via Dracula. Everything you read by them afterwards will be tinged with the slight disappointment of never quite being as good as the book that made you a fan.

So I’ve just finished reading John Connolly’s debut Every Dead Thing. I read it after already having completed seventeen of the eighteen books, in this, one of my favourite crime series. I say this only to provide some context. The Charlie Parker series has held my attention for years and, with its mixture of the supernatural and the philosophical, it’s been one of the few series where I’ve read each new book as they’ve been released.

That has meant that I’ve followed the journey of the central characters. The deaths, divorces and births. I followed as children were born and matured. So it felt a little strange to go back to the beginning, to the point where the characters I know so well are first introduced to the reader.

I did this with Lee Child and found the experience too jarring. The Jack Reacher I knew wasn’t the same man in the early books. That Jack Reacher was the product of a less able hand, a man that didn’t have the fully developed and consistent personality of the Reacher documented by the master craftsman Child would become.

Every Dead Thing opens with the scene that will shape New York detective Charlie Parker’s subsequent life and the rest of the series. His wife and daughter and brutally and sadistically slayed as Parker drinks in his local pub. And I do mean brutally and sadistically.

His subsequent investigations take him on a journey into the past and into a series of brutal child murders. We’re introduced to Parker and his two friends, Angel and Louie, central characters in the series. The pair, who live almost off the grid, are far from your stereotypical criminal sidekicks. Angel is a shabbily dressed career criminal and Louie, his aloof black boyfriend, a sauve and feared hitman. There’s a large cast of characters to familiarise yourself with, including psychologist Rachel who features heavily throughout the series.

So we have Parker, recently pushed out of his detective job, haunted by the death of his family – both metaphorically and literally – then asked by a former colleague to find a missing girl. There’s a sense that Parker can do this type of job, though he probably shouldn’t. He’s guilt ridden, violent and tenacious and his first case leads him into a twisted world of child killers only months after his own child’s death.

Connolly writes with a depth that isn’t always evident in this genre. He’s nearer to James Lee Burke than Lee Child. There’s not only a supernatural element to his work, but a spiritual dimension too. Something that becomes more prominent as the series progresses and as Connolly improves as a writer.

Surprisingly, Parker solves the case of the missing girl.

I say surprisingly as this happens part way through the book. Maybe it’s just my preference, because the book was very well received and picked up meaningful awards, but I didn’t particularly like that he only started to investigate his own families murders in the second half of the book.

However, overall it does work.

Like James Lee Burke’s detective Dave Robicheaux, Parker finds himself in the swamps of Louisiana among a racially diverse community of the superstitious and uneducated. Poor, but fundamentally decent people, for whom a series of ritualistic and artistic serial killings are traumatising but not wholly unexpected. By this point Parker is being taunted by the killer, now identified as the Travelling man. The man who tortured and killed his family in a religiously inspired crime.

Rachel researches the religious symbolism as Parker uncovers the evidence. Angel and Louie provide the additional menace needed when Parker inevitably crosses paths with the powerful crime families that keep a tight grip on the weak and lawless rural communities.

Every Dead Thing was a good read, but it probably wouldn’t be my first choice as an introduction to the author. There’s some books in the series that are really great reads. Legitimately among the best crime books of recent years. Definitely read John Connolly. But think about starting the series a couple of books in despite my earlier warning about the pitfalls of reading an author’s best work first.