The Lovers

Starred review from May 4, 2009
Bestseller Connolly once again expertly melds a hard-boiled plot with the supernatural in his eighth Charlie Parker crime novel (after The Reapers
). While previous books in the series explored the trauma at the heart of Parker's backstory, the murder of the PI's wife and daughter, this one examines an equally devastating family trauma—the suicide of his New York City policeman father, Will, after Will gunned down two unarmed teenagers decades earlier. As Parker, who was 15 at the time, seeks the truth about his ancestry, he comes to doubt that he was raised by his biological parents. When he learns a pair of undying beings have him at the top of their hit list, he decides to return to New York City after a stint tending bar in Maine. The underlying grim sadness and Connolly's unwillingness to pull his punches will appeal to noir fans, while his effective use of understatement and evocative prose makes his alternate universe plausible.

Starred review from July 27, 2009
Connolly's latest thriller sees a depressed, soul-searching Charlie Parker stripped of his private investigator's license, tending bar in Maine and still tormented by the dark secrets in his past: the murder of his wife and daughter and the mysterious suicide of his policeman father, Will. He returns to New York to investigate the circumstances of his father's death and is contacted by a woman who claims to be haunted by an unseen and deadly presence. Jay Sanders does full justice to Connolly's taut narrative, relying on an approach that is colorful yet restrained, edgy yet traditional in a perfect interpretation of this novel that combines elements of classic noir with the supernatural. An Atria hardcover (Reviews, May 4).