A supernatural element has long been present in John Connolly’s excellent Charlie Parker series. The 16th title, The Woman in the Woods (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99), is no exception: evil takes many forms here, from the depressingly familiar – men who abuse and kill women – to a demonic figure brought into being for the sole purpose of finding the Fractured Atlas, a book that will change the world by replacing the Old God with the Not Gods. When a woman’s body is discovered in a forest in Maine, private eye Parker is tasked with finding the child she gave birth to shortly before her death. Meanwhile, in Cadillac, Indiana, malevolent Quayle and his aptly named and memorably revolting sidekick, Pallida Mors, with her mortuary-white skin and lifeless eyes, are on the trail of pregnant young Karis Lamb, who came to the town to find sanctuary “from the devil himself”. And in an isolated cabin, a small boy is receiving calls from a dead woman on his toy phone. Beautifully written, with a complex plot and a large cast of richly drawn characters, this is Connolly at his sinister best.
As if the fate of the real Donner Party – a grisly footnote in the American story of westward expansion – were not bad enough, Alma Katsu adds a rich vein of horror to her imaginative retelling of the 1846 wagon journey across the continent to California. The Hunger (Bantam, £12.99) is astonishingly atmospheric, with a strong sense of claustrophobia, despite the vast prairies and mountains. The power struggles that break out among the travellers as they jettison unnecessary baggage and fight over dwindling food supplies harden into suspicion and loathing after a lost child is found dead and mutilated. It gradually becomes clear that, whatever cannibalistic shapeshifter may be lurking outside the circle of wagons, the real danger lies within the group itself. Despite carrying some unnecessary baggage of its own in the form of back stories that reveal what is already obvious, this is an enthralling and chilling read.
The spectral presences in Julia Haeberlin’s Paper Ghosts (Penguin, £12.99) aren’t phantoms, but missing girls. When Rachel was 19, she disappeared from her Texas hometown as though “a lasso dropped from the clouds and snatched her up”, and her younger sister, the unnamed narrator, has spent half her life trying to find her. The culprit, she thinks, is 61-year-old photographer Carl Louis Feldman, who was tried but not convicted of another girl’s murder and whose work links him to several crime scenes. He claims to have no memory of the past, but the young woman springs him from a halfway house for dementia patients and takes him on a road trip across the county, convinced that revisiting the locations of his eerie photos will unlock his secrets. The conclusion may prove a damp squib, but strong characterisation, haunting images, a wonderful sense of place and some dark comedy make this travelogue-cum-psychological thriller well worth the read.
Derek B Miller’s first novel, Norwegian by Night, was the story of a New Yorker transplanted to Oslo. American by Day (Doubleday, £16.99) is a reverse culture clash, with Norwegian detective Sigrid Ødegaard travelling to upstate New York to find her missing brother, Marcus, who is suspected of killing his African American lover, prominent academic Lydia Jones (those wishing to avoid spoilers relating to the debut novel, in which Sigrid plays a part, may want to read that first). The local police seem convinced that Marcus is guilty, and Sigrid is perturbed by the prevailing gun culture, and especially by the killing of Lydia’s 12-year-old nephew by a white police officer. Working with – and sometimes against – the down-home, folksy sheriff, and using a variety of unorthodox methods, she sets out to track down Marcus. Engaging characters, a cracking plot and some interesting insights into the differences between the values of the two cultures more than compensate for Miller’s occasional outbreaks of didacticism.
Four years ago, in Darkness, Darkness, John Harvey gave us the swan song of veteran copper Charlie Resnick, and now, in Body & Soul (Heinemann, £14.99), it’s the turn of his other series detective, Frank Elder. Frank is disconcerted when his estranged daughter turns up at his Cornish hideaway, traumatised but truculent and with bandaged wrists. He still feels guilty for his failure to prevent her abduction and rape as a teenager by a man named Adam Keach, and in the intervening years the two have lost touch, with Katherine drifting through temporary jobs in London. When Frank tries to question her, she catches the train back home. He follows, and discovers that she’s been modelling for, and having a relationship with, controversial artist Anthony Winter. Shortly afterwards, Winter is found bludgeoned to death in his studio, and Katherine is the prime suspect. Frank’s instinct is to protect her, but there’s little he can do – and then he discovers that Keach has escaped from prison … Written in an economical style, this is an expertly plotted and moving final act for an old-school investigator of the best sort, from a true master of the genre.
Laura Wilson’s latest novel, The Other Woman, is published by Quercus.
