The Unquiet (Charlie Parker Series #6) »

Fans of John Connolly's unique, atmospheric novels have come to know that the cases former NYPD detective Charlie Parker sets out to solve are haunting -- literally haunting.

But that is the nature of revenge. It escalates. It cannot be controlled. One hurt invites another, on and on until the original injury is all but forgotten in the chaos of what follows...

John Connolly's originality and talent for storytelling have quickly made him one of today's preeminent thriller writers. Now, in The Unquiet, private detective Charlie Parker returns to untangle a horrifying story of betrayal, unclean desires, and murder -- a story of never-ending evil whose conclusion is not yet written.

Daniel Clay, a once-respected psychiatrist, has gone missing. His daughter insists that he killed himself after allegations surfaced that he had betrayed his patients to foul and evil men -- but when a killer obsessed with uncovering the truth behind his own daughter's disappearance comes seeking revenge, long-forgotten secrets begin to emerge. Hired by Dr. Clay's daughter to protect her from the predator on the loose, tortured and ingenious private detective Charlie Parker finds himself trapped between those who want the truth to be revealed and those who will go to any length to keep it hidden.

John Connolly masterfully intertwines secret lives and secret sins with the violence that so often lies beneath the surface of the honeycomb world in this gripping page-turner. Fast-paced, hypnotic, and elegantly written, The Unquiet is John Connolly at his chilling best.

Publishers Weekly

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)