A Time of Torment by John Connolly (first published in 2016 by Hodder & Stoughton)
It doesn’t often happen that I google an author when I start reading a book, since I’m usually happy to let the story speak for itself. In fact, I very rarely read back blurbs, because I like reading books where I don’t know what to expect.
Yet, after the first chapter of A Time of Torment, I relented and googled Charlie Parker. Why? Because I thought I was dreaming.
Parker is an ex-NYPD cop who is now a hardboiled detective, so I was not expecting otherworldly shenanigans. Yet Connelly adds these supernatural elements so subtly, that I thought I was imagining things.
Hence the googling.
Anyway, in A Time of Torment, ex-convict, Jerome Burnel, seeks the help of Charlie Parker, and his two cool as ice, enigmatic sidekicks – Louis and Angel.
Although Burnel is a convicted paedophile, Parker agrees to listen to his story, because something about this case seems off.
Why did a man who heroically saved two innocent lives, and with no history of sexual deviance or child abuse suddenly end up in jail for paedophilia? And what does the secretive, intimidating community in the mountains of Plassey County, Charleston, have to do with it?
So now you see why I read it so quickly?
A) hard-bitten detective with a dark past? Check.
B) Subtle supernatural elements to up the creep factor and heighten suspense? Check.
C) Scary, cult-like village in West Virginia, who hates outsiders and can be tied to kidnappings and murders tracing back centuries? Check.
Connelly manages to write about the violent and the macabre, without making you feel dirty inside – a skill which I think is highly underrated. His characters – even the small supporting ones never to be seen again – are full, and human.
I am definitely going to pop into the library and find a bunch of Charlie Parker’s for this December holiday.
Purchase a copy from Takealot.com.
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