Black Angel [Hardcover]

John Connolly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2005

The Black Angel is not an object. The Black Angel is not a myth. The Black Angel lives. A young woman goes missing from the streets of New York. Those who have taken her believe that nobody cares about her, and that no one will come looking for her. They are wrong. She is 'blood' to the killer Louis, the man who stands at the right hand of private detective Charlie Parker, and Louis will tear apart anyone who stands in the way of his attempts to find her. But as Louis' violent search progresses, Parker comes to realize that the disappearance is part of an older mystery, one that is linked to an ornate church of bones in Eastern Europe, to the slaughter at a French monastery in 1944, and to the quest for a mythical prize that has been sought for centuries by evil men: the Black Angel. Yet, the Black Angel is more than a myth. It is conscious. It dreams. It is alive. And men are not the only creatures that seek it ...

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Gruesome and gripping.' Yorkshire Post (Apr 05) 'An excellent read.' Nottingham Evening Post (Apr 05) 'His most ambitious and intricate work to date ... Connolly's remarkable talent includes an assured ability to tease the reader to the very point where you accept that there are creatures and beings other than humans stalking the earth.' Manx Independent (Apr 05) 'There is a precision to the horrors that make them one of the few sequences to have found anything interesting to say about serial killers since Thomas Harris.' -- Independent 'Connolly has virtually no match when it comes to chilling his readers.' -- Daily Express 'A Gothic horror story and a well-paced thriller. John Connolly writes beautifully about a world that is desolate, pain-filled and seeming hopeless, with the powers of darkness always threatening to rent the fabric of reality and bring chaos. But he also has a keen eye for the underbelly of modern American life, a good ear for current street argot, and his violent set pieces are satisfyingly exciting and vibrantly realised.' -- Myles McWeeney, Irish Independent 'Colourful but visceral grand guignol, and definitely not to be read at night.' -- Guardian 'Stylishly literate gore and terror' -- Kirkus Reviews 'Dark and powerful yet beautifully written' -- Big Issue 'Great narrative talent packed with vivid scenes and sequences. An impressive feat of storytelling' -- Irish Times Weekend Review 'Satisfying and literate thrill ride' -- Evening Herald (Dublin) 'An excellent, thrilling read.' -- David Torrans, Belfast Telegraph 'John Connolly has taken his serial hero and changed him from an ex-cop turned private eye to a supernatural detective whose own ancestry is as murky as it is fascinating. It's another bestseller of course.' -- Mark Timlin, Independent on Sunday 'One to keep you up at night' -- Tangled Web 'Private detective Charlie Parker chases strung out prostitutes and ossuary-building killers in a page-turner that harks back to the fall of the rebel angels. The action stays both speedy and gruesome' -- Time Out 'This is not just a powerful thriller, it's also a titanic battle between the forces of good and evil, with religion and the supernatural stirred into the brew... his most operatically large scale book yet.' -- Crime Time

About the Author

John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968. His debut -EVERY DEAD THING - swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He is the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Hodder Hb (April 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340837659
• ISBN-13: 978-0340837658
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,303,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and have, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a "gofer" at Harrods department store in London. I studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, to which I continue to contribute, although not as often as I would like. I still try to interview a few authors every year, mainly writers whose work I like, although I've occasionally interviewed people for the paper simply because I thought they might be quirky or interesting. All of those interviews have been posted to my website, http://www.johnconnolly.co.uk.

I was working as a journalist when I began work on my first novel. Like a lot of journalists, I think I entered the trade because I loved to write, and it was one of the few ways I thought I could be paid to do what I loved. But there is a difference between being a writer and a journalist, and I was certainly a poorer journalist than I am a writer (and I make no great claims for myself in either field.) I got quite frustrated with journalism, which probably gave me the impetus to start work on the novel. That book, Every Dead Thing, took about five years to write and was eventually published in 1999. It introduced the character of Charlie Parker, a former policeman hunting the killer of his wife and daughter. Dark Hollow, the second Parker novel, followed in 2000. The third Parker novel, The Killing Kind, was published in 2001, with The White Road following in 2002. In 2003, I published my fifth novel - and first stand-alone book - Bad Men. In 2004, Nocturnes, a collection of novellas and short stories, was added to the list, and 2005 marked the publication of the fifth Charlie Parker novel, The Black Angel. In 2006, The Book of Lost Things, my first non-mystery novel, will be published.

I am based in Dublin but divide my time between my native city and the United States, where each of my novels has been set.