Dark Hollow [Hardcover]

John Connolly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 2001

When John Connolly burst upon the literary suspense scene in 1999, he was an immediate international sensation. His "Every Dead Thing" became an instantaneous bestseller in England, and here in America, his writing was greeted with extraordinary accolades. He won the prestigious Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel, and, as the "San Francisco Examiner" wrote, "John Connolly's tale is as riveting and chilling as Thomas Harris's "The Silence of the Lambs" and James Patterson's "Kiss the Girls.""

Now, Connolly returns with "Dark Hollow," a terrifying and ingenious novel of a murderous spree that reaches back decades into the victims' pasts. Back again is ex-New York Police Detective Charlie "Bird" Parker, who has returned to his hometown of Scarborough, Maine, after the vicious killings of his wife and daughter; it is time to leave the bloodstained streets of Manhattan and rebuild his family's house -- as well as his own life. But for Bird, returning to his roots means digging through a mountain of terror, as memories of his father's and grandfather's untimely deaths resurface and drive him to join the manhunt for the killer of yet another mother and child. Though the obvious suspect is Billy Purdue, the violent former husband of the murdered young woman, another player lurks in this disturbing drama, someone entangled in the dark hollow of Bird's past.

Darkly atmospheric, tense and imbued with the page-turning ferocity that only the finest crime fiction offers, "Dark Hollow" is a stunning successor to "Every Dead Thing," a testament to the burgeoning power of John Connolly to tell stories that thrill, frighten and haunt the soul.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Charlie "Bird" Parker, the protagonist of John Connolly's Shamus Award-winning first novel, Every Dead Thing, returns in another moody, masterful thriller set in the beautifully evoked Maine woods where Bird has returned to lick his wounds and recover from the murder of his wife and daughter explored in the earlier book. A half-hearted investigator, Bird agrees to track down the ex-husband of Rita Purdue and get the child support she has coming to her. And when Rita and her son are killed and the finger of suspicion points to Billy Purdue, Bird still feels a moral obligation to find the young man, even though he can't believe he's a killer. Then the bodies begin piling up, among them a bunch of Cambodian killers, some mob-connected Boston gangsters, a couple of people to whom Billy turned for refuge, and an old woman in a nursing home who dies with the name of a bogeyman on her lips--the mysterious Caleb Kyle. It's not the first time Bird's heard that name: his grandfather, who was also a cop, spent his last years trying to track down the legendary monster whose name was always used to scare kids into doing what they were supposed to. And it's not only his grandfather's ghost that haunts Bird as he attempts to solve the mystery of who Billy Purdue really is; the spirits of his dead wife and child urge him on in his attempt to find justice for Rita and her child as well. Aided in his quest by two unlikely but compellingly realized associates, a gay hit man and his lover, Bird confronts the evil that lurks in a mythical monster who turns out to be all too real, and comes to terms, finally, with the grief that has colored his life black since the death of his family. A powerful, well-paced thriller with a complex and interesting hero who bears even further explication--hopefully in his third adventure. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

Irish writer Connolly's follow-up to Every Dead Thing, which won the 2000 Shamus Award for Best PI First Novel, is just as grim, hard-edged and compulsively readable as his debut. Recently relocated to his home town of Scarborough, Maine, newly licensed PI Charlie Parker tries to get some overdue child support from wastrel Billy Purdue as a favor to Purdue's ex-wife Rita, an act of charity that ends up pitting Parker and his friends Angel and Luis against mobster Tony Celli. Celli is looking for $2 million that Purdue might have heisted during a botched ransom exchange, and a pair of killers named Abel and Stritch are on the loose. There's also a trail of dead bodies, all of them linked to Purdue's search for his birth parents, a line that stretches from his family to an old woman who kills herself after running away from a nursing home. She claims to have seen Caleb Kyle, a vicious serial killer who hasn't been heard from since Parker's youth. It's this element of the plot that lends a supernatural air to the already creepy proceedings (Parker has visions of his dead wife and daughter); the book opens like a Stephen King novel, with a violent prologue, visions of nameless evil darkening the stars, and the dead past coming alive. Since the novel is set in Maine, it feels like an homage to the master of Pine Tree State horror. Luckily, this very violent hunt for a revived serial killer can survive comparison with the best, especially when you consider that Connolly is creating pitch-perfect American dialogue and believable American characters from a desk in Dublin. Agent, Darley Anderson.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (June 26, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743203321
• ISBN-13: 978-0743203326
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,711 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MENACING CHARACTERS IN SHIVER PRODUCING CLIMES, July 9, 2001

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Hollow (Hardcover)

With an opening line signaling devilish doings, "I dream dark dreams," Irish thrillersmith John Connolly launches his second suspenseful tale featuring New York policeman turned private investigator Charlie Parker. Connolly copped the 2000 Shamus Award for his debut, "Every Dead Thing." "Dark Hollow" assures readers that he deserved it.

Unable to set aside the murders of his wife and daughter, a haunted Parker returns to his hometown of Scarborough, Maine. Rather than finding solace in the northeast woods Parker is faced with a series of seemingly unrelated mysteries and a terrifying sociopathic mobster, Tony Celli.

Oddly enough the current series of murders are remarkably akin to 40-year-old killings - crimes that Parker's grandfather spent most of his life trying to solve. What is the connection between today's violence and killings almost half a century old?

Author Connolly pulls out all the stops with this highly readable, almost surreal tale involving mysterious forces lurking in the wilderness, and a long buried past seemingly rising from the grave. Connolly's an ace at creating menacing characters and shiver producing climes.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enter Dark Hollow at your own risk!, July 4, 2001

By 

jim munchel (Camp Hill, P.a USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dark Hollow (Hardcover)

John Connolly's Dark Hollow is a prime example of bringing two genres together. The thriller and horror genres collide in the second installment of the cases taken on by Charlie "Bird" Parker and his backup Angel and Louis. This time around Parker agrees to help an old classmate Rita and her small son find her abusive ex hushand Billy Purdue. Billy is in over his head with some serious ****. Also thrown into the mix is a case Parker's grandfather could not close over thirty years ago. if you see Caleb Kyle you better run a mile! Something watching in the woods of Dark Hollow, stolen money, an old romance, a body count to numerous too mention, and enough scenes of out and out horror, make this my favorite book so far this year. Note: Read Every Dead Thing from John Connolly, the first Charlie Parker novel! I'm sure you can get it here at Amazon.com

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chiller!, August 5, 2001

By 

Charlotte Vale-Allen (CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dark Hollow (Hardcover)

Connolly's books are a kind of hybrid: the mystery/horror novel. Every Dead Thing's hero, Charlie Parker, returns in Dark Hollow in pursuit once again of a singular force of death and destruction (with a few peripherhal malevalent forces to be dealt with, as well). Charlie "Bird" Parker, who has nothing whatever to do with his musician namesake, is the adult equivalent of the child in The Sixth Sense (he sees dead people.) It is to the author's credit that the reader is able to take this seriously, primarily because of the oddly lyrical descriptions of the horrors that face the hero at almost every turn. Connolly's continuing theme is of lives and loves lost to horrific violence, and in Dark Hollow he takes us on a wretchedly cold trip through the upper reaches of Maine, in pursuit of Caleb Kyle who may or may not be the mythical, local equivalent of the bogeyman.

With the help of his two wonderfully well-conceived sidekicks, Louis and Angel, Bird sets out to accomplish several tasks: to find the missing daughter of a former police officer friend, to locate the missing Billy Purdue (and the millions in payoff money he may have intercepted with the result that quite a number of villains are on his trail), and to find the killer of Billy's estranged wife and son. There are many killings, all linked in some way or another to Caleb Kyle.

This is compulsive reading, highly recommended for those not faint of heart.