It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young black women in Burdon County, Arkansas.
But no one wants to admit it, not in the Dirty South.
In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer. He cares only for his own lost family.
But that is about to change . . .
Witness the becoming of Charlie Parker.
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The tide rolled in, erasing the first of the footprints in the sand, like the memory of a presence gradually being excised from the history of the beach. 1
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(@HodderBooks, 20 August 2020, 480 pages, hardback, copy from @AmazonUK)
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John Connolly is one of my favourite writers and has been for years since the first Charlie Parker book, Every Dead Thing blew my mind many years ago. I was looking forward to the next Charlie Parker book but was nervous about The Dirty South as it seemed to be a prologue to the whole series. Would it spoil Every Dead Thing or erase the events of this book completely? I needn't have worried. The events in this book take place before Every Dead Thing and the ending leads nicely into the book. Even better, my favourite characters Angel and Louis make an appearance at the end. This is quite different than the other books in the series. For one thing, the supernatural undertones you find in the other books are kept to a minimal. The book is a lot less violent. I loved it though. Parker puts aside his grief for his dead wife and daughter and his obsession with finding their killer to stand up for dead black women few people care about and most people want to sweep their brutal murders aside. I can't wait to find out where Parker, Angel and Louis go next.
