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I was lamenting to a friend on Friday how annoyed I was coming into the long weekend knowing that the new John Connolly book wouldn’t be out until Tuesday. It annoyed me that it was given two separate release dates, one for Australia, England and Ireland (September 1st) and another for North America (September 6th). I wanted it now! I definitely wanted to take advantage of all this free time I expected to have this weekend. So you can imagine my surprise and glee when I walked into the local bookstore on Friday night and saw it sitting on the shelf for sale.

As I’ve said before, Connolly’s Parker was the character that sucked me into mystery/detective fiction in the first place. After I had read Every Dead Thing about two and a half years ago, I knew this was going to become my genre of choice. When I had read that this novel closely resembled The Unquiet, I was a little nervous. It was by far, the book I had been most disappointed in. I opened that review stating I was getting “burned out” on the character! If not for the books that succeeded that entry, I may not have stayed with the series.

That being said, after I put this book down this evening – I was very pleased with what I had read. No, it’s not the best Parker book (that honor still belongs to [b:The Reapers|2515832|The Reapers (Charlie Parker, #7)|John Connolly|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51flREuCuoL._SL75_.jpg|2425284], in my opinion) but it was still a great entry into the series. Parker himself doesn’t progress within this novel as Connolly concentrated mainly on the case and less on Charlie’s personal life, which is a little refreshing. Also, Louis and Angel, while used in small doses, are pretty entertaining. While I could always use more of them, it should be about quality, not quantity as that old saying goes. Parker is still dealing with his personal demons as well as the existence of spirits that revolve around his life but it’s far less central. I’m all for this but I’m thinking that perhaps Connolly is preparing something major for the next one. Here’s hoping!

As much as I liked this book, I really can’t give it anything above 4 stars as that would be putting it in the same league as [b:The Reapers|2515832|The Reapers (Charlie Parker, #7)|John Connolly|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51flREuCuoL._SL75_.jpg|2425284] – which it most certainly is not. However, don’t let that take anything away from the overall quality of this novel. I very much missed Parker and I’m happy to have had a new book to sink my teeth into. Connolly is my favorite author working today and I can’t wait for the next one!