The American detective created by Irish writer John Connolly will be twenty this year. The publication of A Book of Bones (Hodder & Stoughton) marks the seventeenth in the series but it will also be twenty years since Connolly created Parker. This time out, Parker is involved in a case that is steeped in English folk tradition as he attempts to thwart his nemesis Quayle restoring the Fractured Atlas. The novel is the sixth and final instalment in a long story that began with The Wolf in Winter. The international success of Charlie Parker has cemented Connolly’s place in the pantheon of great crime writers and he is not finished with Parker yet, so we may be celebrating his 40th anniversary in twenty years’ time.
Tony Canavan
