The Unquiet

Of the few novelists who manage to combine the private eye and horror genres successfully, none does it better than Connolly. Here he gives his hapless hero, Charlie Parker, a man obsessed with the memory of the gruesome murders of his wife and daughter, a particularly disturbing case involving child predators and killers. It’s a grim story, including the reappearance of a Parker foe, the sinister and probably supernatural Collector who is drawn to “certain crimes” from which he extracts keepsakes. Sanders has the right kind of vocal timbre to suggest Parker’s tough–but–soul sick protagonist and the skill to give the gritty material a properly noir tone. As for the Collector, whom Connelly tells us “tastes words like unfamiliar food,” Sanders conjures up a raspy whisper that carries more than the hint of a distaste for life. It also contains an echo of Parker’s voice, which follows the author’s suggestion that the Collector may be a specter of the detective’s imagination. In any case, the sound, like the novel itself, is as unnerving as a fever dream. Simultaneous release with the Atria hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 26). (May)