The Burning Soul

August 1, 2011
In Connolly's solid 10th thriller featuring private detective Charlie Parker (after The Whisperers), Randall Haight approaches attorney Aimee Price in the tiny Maine town of Pastor's Bay to ask for help regarding anonymous notes he's been receiving in the mail. It's obvious the sender knows that Randall used to be William Lagenheimer, who at age 14 with a friend raped and killed a 14-year-old black girl in North Dakota. Having served his time, Lagenheimer is living as Randall Haight, the new identity created for him by the court. The threats couldn't come at a worse time: 14-year-old Anna Kore is missing from a strip mall on the mainland, and if word got out about Randall's past, he'd be the prime suspect. Aimee draws Charlie into the foldâdespite his personal distaste at working for a man who killed a childâand he starts his own investigation. Though the plot plods initially, Connolly later gathers momentum, and his portrayal of the perpetually troubled Charlie as ever rings true.

September 1, 2011
Maine private detective Charlie Parker is engaged in a bit of a balancing act. Hired to find out who's been sending harassing mail to a man with a dark past, Charlie soon begins to wonder if the past is encroaching on the present. When he was a teenager, Randall Haight and another boy killed a 14-year-old girl. Randall did his time in prison, and now, under a new identity, he's been trying to live a quiet, uneventful life. But someone knows Randall's secret and seems determined to torture him with it. Whether it's a coincidence that a 14-year-old girl has gone missing, or whether Randall hasn't really left his past behind, is what Charlie needs to determine. But it's a very thin line he's walking, investigating his client from two perspectives, as a victim and as a possible offender. Charlie is not only a sharp investigator and a likable guy, he's also an engaging narrator with a compelling voice. Another strong entry in this always exciting series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2011

Private investigator Charlie Parker (The Whisperers) returns in this complicated, multilayered suspense novel with a touch of horror. He is hired to help Randall Haight, who is being blackmailed for a past crime in which he and a friend as teenagers were convicted of killing a 14-year-old girl. On his release as an adult, Haight was given a new name and set himself up as a tax accountant in the small Maine town of Pastor's Bay. But with the disappearance of a local 14-year-old girl, Haight wants to protect his new life and asks Parker to find the blackmailers. To further complicate matters, there are others in Pastor's Bay who are not who they seem to be, and Parker finds himself deeply embroiled in the town's secrets. VERDICT This is more a detective story than a horror novel, but Connolly's plot twists are still sure to please his fans.--Lisa Hanson O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 15, 2011

Connolly's latest Charlie Parker thriller offers a powerful story line that weaves together suspense, mystery and a small touch of the supernatural.

Parker, antihero private investigator, returns for another lap around backwoods Maine, with criminals and the occasional ghostly visitor as uneasy companions. This time Parker gets involved with the case of a missing child, 14-year-old Anna Kore, who disappears from the tiny, isolated town of Pastor's Bay, leaving behind not a single workable clue. But Charlie hasn't been called in to help find Anna, although his case dovetails with that of her disappearance. Instead, he's been hired by an attorney representing a strange and conflicted client who may or may not be involved in the Kore case. Parker, whose own wife and child died and whose latest lover, Rachel, has left and taken their daughter, Sam, along with her, labors under no illusions. He knows the chances of getting Anna back alive are slim to none. But the deeper he gets into the case, the more layers he finds: Everyone from Boston-based mobsters to the FBI want a little piece of this action. Parker is a typical world-weary detective, but he's made more interesting by the company he keeps: Angel and Louis, strangely mismatched souls who are there when Charlie needs them, cops who neither trust nor respect him and sometimes the odd visitor from a world beyond the living.

An intelligent, plausible thriller, both harrowing and memorable.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)