The Killing Kind

If you are a mystery reader, I am not sure that I can think of a single book I would recommend you read ahead of this one. Dark but funny, terrifying and ambiguous, John Connolly has singlehandedly morphed the contemporary mystery novel into something entirely different than what it had been prior to his arrival on the scene. Echoes of Poe and Doyle reverberate through the book, and the...more

If you are a mystery reader, I am not sure that I can think of a single book I would recommend you read ahead of this one. Dark but funny, terrifying and ambiguous, John Connolly has singlehandedly morphed the contemporary mystery novel into something entirely different than what it had been prior to his arrival on the scene. Echoes of Poe and Doyle reverberate through the book, and the quality of the writing is at least equal to the latter. What brings these books to the level of mastery is the believability of the characters. I enjoy a Spenser novel as much as the next guy, but when Parker tries to write the inner-city black man's dialogue, it sounds like a 70-year-old man writing it. No such problems with Connolly. Every character has a history, every character evolves. This novel is the springboard for an absolutely fantastic series.   hide