The Furies by John Connolly
Review by Jordan S.
Things are kind of crazy on the Gnome side of the Kaiju & Gnome fence and I truly meant to have a review of the newest John Connolly book, The Children of Eve, out yesterday but it wasn’t until my Zoom call with Ed that I realized not only had I not posted it, I hadn’t edited it yet. It will be going up ‘hopefully’ next Tuesday but in the meantime I had a review I’d been sitting on for a while of John Connolly’s The Furies, the 2022 installment of the Charlie Parker series.
John Connolly's The Furies is a fantastic pair of installments in the long-running Charlie Parker series that I think fans of the series will love.
The first short novel (roughly 55% of the page count) is “The Sisters Strange”. This book was previously shared (in a shorter form) on John Connolly's website at the start of Covid. I did read the story when it was on Connolly's site so when I saw that it was being included (after being expanded) I was a little concerned that half the book would have been something I'd already read but these fears turned out to be unfounded.
The general premise of the story is that a longtime Portland hooligan Raum has returned to Portland after a prison stint and brings with him some very bad vibes. Early on, Parker and Raum square off when the latter makes an appearance at the Bear. However, the momentum of this story really begins when Parker is approached by a man who is dating one of Raum's past (and maybe again) romantic partners. This man warns Parker that he thinks that there is something strange happening with the man and Parker finds himself drawn into the mystery of that. Simultaneously a bizarre murder in Pennsylvania of an antique coin collector and the mysterious man behind it as he slowly approaches Portland.
Honestly, I think I liked this story more now that it has been expanded than I did in March 2020. The additions of the new villain of the story (who feels like a mix of Herod from Whisperers and Quayle from Woman in the Woods/The Book of Bones) and some of the references to the greater Parker-canon drew me in far more quickly than the previous version. The villain is definitely a highlight and will probably be added to the top of my list of villains in Parker stories. Parker is also in great form in this story, caught between his reluctance to get involved in something that at start is nothing more than a domestic situation and the ongoing sense of spiritual wrongness he is getting from Raum.
The second story is “The Furies” and is completely new. I think this story is more a return to the classic mob type stories of some past Parker stories (the mob parts of Dark Hollow and the mob subplot in Game of Ghosts come most to mind). A dark reflection of Parker (a woman whose mobster husband's action got her daughter killed) is now being blackmailed by a pair of criminals. They threaten to destroy something related to her daughter if the woman doesn't pay up. However, the criminals find themselves haunted (and maybe hunted) by the seeming ghost of a child.
This story felt more like classic Connolly (while the “Sisters Strange” felt more along the lines of more recent Connolly stories). The villains were interesting and quite disturbing and the mob elements of the story resulted in more work for Angel and Louis, who were characterized in fine form in this book. This book is also set at the same time as Covid starting and that results in some interesting stories as Parker finds himself racing the clock on shut-downs and travel bans to solve his cases before the world locks down.
Overall, these stories were wonderful and an exciting experimental entry in the world of Charlie Parker. I think longtime fans of the series will love these as well and the little nuggets they drop to the going-ons in Parker's world. Some past characters from a whole bunch of previous Parker stories are name dropped or even make appearances and I think readers will love getting the chance to revisit some of them. I also think some fans will be excited that the first person narrative of the earlier books returns in this one.