Reviews

The Killing Kind, Volume 3: A Charlie Parker Thriller by John Connolly

bkdrgn303's review against another edition

4.0

I listened to the audiobook of this and the narrators mispronunciations of several place names in Maine was really distracting. Other that that, creepy and good.

cassandra_yule's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

moonshine7's review against another edition

3.0

☆:*´¨`*:.•.¸¸.ପໄଓ

I don't have much to say about this book, it was a very well-written crime novel. I was surprised, cause in my experience crime novels tend to have dry and grim prose, but this one had really nice balanced flow and beautiful sentences. I enjoyed the characters a lot, even though we mostly explore our protagonist and we don't dive into others much. That's something I would have enjoyed a bit more from this book, since there's a lot of people involved.

The horror element was very strong here, I loved how disgustingly creepy Mr. Pudd is, extremely well done in my opinion. The author used multiple layers of fear built on fear, with crawling spiders, torture, cult religion, a nightmarish book and a very subtle paranormal presence, that I think added more to the sentimentality of the book other than the horror aspect, and I really enjoyed that.

☆:*´¨`*:.•.¸¸.ପໄଓ

withthebanned's review against another edition

4.0

Harrowing...and I love It.

lyerin's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

alliecat_'s review against another edition

5.0

Great

kiwikazz's review against another edition

4.0

Quite cringy but still a good book

farfbaz's review against another edition

4.0

The overall story is good. Not a fan of the supernatural stuff but I just ignore it. Enjoyed the mystery of it and how the writer is so good at making you visualize the scene as if you are really there.

But boy oh boy was this one creepy. Do not recommend to anyone who is afraid of bugs. I’m going to have nightmares for a while after this one.

burritapal_1's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A rich dude calls Charlie to his house, and asks him to look into the alleged suicide of the daughter of an ex-business partner of his. As an ex-cop and current Private Investigator, CHarlie doesn't savor doing divorce Duty, and this certainly pays better, so he agrees to take it on. Charlie doesn't realize what he's getting into.

Appearing to be a simple case at first, it soon proves to be part of a 30-year-old mass-murder case where the bones of victims are uncovered by a lake in the far north of the state. Missing victims of a religious cult prove to be involved, and a serial murderer named Mr Pudd who uses arachnids to off his victims, and leaves a trail of hideously, bloody dead bodies behind.

Mr Pudd has a sidekick, who turns out to be his sister. In the end we find out that Mr PUdD and his sister are the Offspring of Reverend Faulkner. Early in the book they come to pay a visit to Mr Parker to intimidate him.

" I cocked the pistol.'Get off my property, Mr Pudd, and take your Chatterbox friend with you.' 

that was a mistake. Beside him, the woman shifted to her left suddenly and made as if to spring at me, her left hand tensed like the talons of a hawk while her right hand made a move for her coat. I Lowered the gun and fired a shot into the ground between Mr Pudd's feet, sending a spray of dirt into the air and causing Birds to scatter from the surrounding trees. The woman stopped as his hand shut out and gripped her arm.

'Take off your scarf, my dear,' he said, his eyes never leaving mine. The woman paused, then unknotted her black scarf and held it limply in her left hand. Her exposed neck was crisscrossed with scars, pale pink welts that had left her so badly mutilated that to allow them to remain uncovered would be to invite stares from every passerby. 

'Open wide, dear,' said Mr Pudd. 

The woman's mouth opened, revealing small yellow teeth, pink gums, and a tattered red mass at the back of her throat that was all that remained of her tongue.

'Now sing. Let Mr Parker hear you sing.'

She opened her mouth and her lips moved, but no sound came. Yet she continued to sing a song heard only in her own head, her eyes half-closed in ecstasy, her body swaying slightly in time to the unheard music, until Mr PUDd raised his hand and she closed her mouth instantly. 

'She used to have such a beautiful voice, Mr Parker, so fine and pure. It was throat cancer that took it from her: throat cancer and the will of god. Perhaps it was a strange blessing, a visitation from the Lord sent to testify and confirm her on the one true path to salvation. In the end, I think it just made her love the Lord even more.' "

🙄

When Mr pudd and the singing Canary leave Charlie's house, he hands Charlie a business card he holds out by the tip of it. Charlie's hands blister after he holds it in his hand, so he asks Rachel to have one of her University coworkers analyze it:

" 'the card was infused with a fluid called cantharidin, concentrated canctharidin,' She continued. 'it's sometimes used in medical procedures to produce blistering. One portion of the top right-hand corner has been lightly waxed, presumably so this Mr PUDD could hold it without affecting his own skin. As soon as you took it in your hand, your body heat and the moisture on your fingers activated the cantharidin and you started to blister.'

I thought about it for a moment. 

'so he used some kind of medical product on the card,... ' I began, but Rachel shook her head.

'No, I said it was used for medical purposes, but the substance on the card was a very specific form of the toxin, produced, according to the research assistant who examined it, only by "certain desiccating anthropods." It's blister beetle venom. The man who gave it to you must have harvested the venom, concentrated it, then applied it to the card.' "

One of my favorite things to do when I'm reading books is look up the settings on Google maps. In this case, Charlie Parker is at a place called The Cloisters, which is part of the Metropolitan museum, but removed from the Met that's in Manhattan. 

So Charlie Parker is supposed to meet up with Mickey Shine, who I forget what his role is in this book, but he goes out in the garden of The Cloisters looking for him.

" The garden had been planted with shrubs and trees common in medieval times. A quartet of quince trees stood in the middle, the first signs of the yellow fruit now appearing. Valerian was overshadowed by the huge leaves of black mustard; nearby grew Caraway and leak, chive and lovage, madder and Our-Lady's-bedstraw, the last two constituent ingredients in the dyes used by artists for the manuscripts on display in the main body of the museum. 

It took me seconds to notice the new addition to the garden. Against the far wall, beside the entrance to the tower, grew an espaliered pear tree, its shape resembling a menorah. The bare branches were like hooks, six of them growing out from the main artery of the tree. Mickey Shine's head had been impaled on the very tip of that Central artery, turning him to a creature of both flesh and wood. Tendril-like Trails of coagulating blood hung from the neck, and the rain damped the pallor of His features as water pooled in the sunken sockets of his eyes. Tattered skin blew softly in the wind, and there was blood around his mouth and ears. His ponytail had been severed during the removal of his head and the Loose Hair now stuck lankly to his gray-blue skin."

The reason that Mr PUDd et Al are chasing Charlie Parker so aggressively is that they think he has this special book that Mr Pudd's father the Reverend Faulkner made. They're called Apocalypse:

" there were about 30 pages of varying sizes in the book. Two or three were constructed from single patches of skin, twice as large as the book itself. These had been folded, then bound through the fold, creating a double page; other pages had been made up from smaller section of skin sewn carefully together, some of them no bigger than two or three Square inches. The pages varied in thickness; one was so thin that the color of my hand showed through beneath, but others were more thickly layered. Most appeared to be sections taken from the lower back or shoulders, although one page showed the strange sunken hole of a human navel and another bore, close to its center, a shrunken nipple. Like the bifolios of old, the parchments made from goatskin and CalfSkin used by medieval scribes, one side of the page was smooth where any remaining body hair had been rubbed off, while the other was rough. The smooth sides had been used for the illustrations and the script, so that on any one double page only the right-hand side was filled."

This book, the third in the Charlie Parker series, was pretty cool, with all the stuff about spiders and insects in it. I'm fascinated with insects, and John Connolly did his research diligently in order to write this book. Moreover, the history of the state of Maine and its cults make for fascinating reading. 

The romance between Charlie Parker and Rachel is advancing steadily, and at the end of this book, she tells Charlie that she's pregnant. Now isn't that sweet?

emeroc's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75