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A review by april_does_feral_sometimes
The Burning Soul by John Connolly
4.0
Charlie Parker takes on a missing child case, eventually, in 'The Burning Soul', book ten in the paranormal detective series. Officially, he is working a possible blackmail case for a Pastor's Bay, Maine, lawyer, Aimee Price, who needs a private detective to trace the source behind the harassment of a Pastor's Bay accountant. Randall Haight (randy hate, haha), a very unlikeable man, has been receiving photos in the mail of a barn door and child porn. This is very bad, because Haight is a participant in a judge-ordered relocation program. No one is supposed to know of his previous incarnation and incarceration for the murder of a 14-year-old girl in another state when he himself was 14 years old.
After serving his time, upon release from prison, he was given a new name and home. Now he is Randall Haight, accountant, honest citizen, as a reward, partially, for his testimony against his partner in the murder, 14-year-old Lonny Midas, and because he was a juvenile when the two boys committed the crime. Together they raped and killed an innocent childhood friend in a barn. They both were sentenced as adults, and after serving their time, both were placed into new identities. Haight has no idea where Midas might be, or if he is behind the horrible photos. What is clear is someone knows all about what happened. Are the implied threats linked to a new kidnapping of a girl from Pastor's Bay? Is Haight being set up as a fall guy? Or is Haight playing some sort of double whammy?
Kurt Allan, Chief of Police of Pastor's Bay, is trying to hold his little Maine town together. There is the crowd of reporters demanding information about the disappearance of Anna Kore, a 14-year-old Pastor's Bay child, daughter of Valerie Core, local divorced mother. Then there are several various police agency detectives and officers who have taken over the investigation - the FBI, the Maine State Police's Criminal Investigation Division - once the Amber alert was released. It appears the Kores might be linked to a criminal overlord currently involved in a power struggle which he is losing - so he is being pushed out of the Mafia enterprise (gentle reader, mafia dons who have displeased the other mafia leaders do not exactly retire). But Allen's real troubles begin when Charlie Parker starts investigating Anna's disappearance. Parker is not about to follow protocols and rules. He is digging up all kinds of secrets....
I enjoyed reading this novel. John Connolly has a literary style of writing mysteries that sometimes causes booklover tingles, but he also tends to walk off of the mystery-genre reservation into the paranormal world as much as his hardcore private detective wanders into acting as judge and jury. Nonetheless, this is still a satisfying dark-mystery series.
After serving his time, upon release from prison, he was given a new name and home. Now he is Randall Haight, accountant, honest citizen, as a reward, partially, for his testimony against his partner in the murder, 14-year-old Lonny Midas, and because he was a juvenile when the two boys committed the crime. Together they raped and killed an innocent childhood friend in a barn. They both were sentenced as adults, and after serving their time, both were placed into new identities. Haight has no idea where Midas might be, or if he is behind the horrible photos. What is clear is someone knows all about what happened. Are the implied threats linked to a new kidnapping of a girl from Pastor's Bay? Is Haight being set up as a fall guy? Or is Haight playing some sort of double whammy?
Kurt Allan, Chief of Police of Pastor's Bay, is trying to hold his little Maine town together. There is the crowd of reporters demanding information about the disappearance of Anna Kore, a 14-year-old Pastor's Bay child, daughter of Valerie Core, local divorced mother. Then there are several various police agency detectives and officers who have taken over the investigation - the FBI, the Maine State Police's Criminal Investigation Division - once the Amber alert was released. It appears the Kores might be linked to a criminal overlord currently involved in a power struggle which he is losing - so he is being pushed out of the Mafia enterprise (gentle reader, mafia dons who have displeased the other mafia leaders do not exactly retire). But Allen's real troubles begin when Charlie Parker starts investigating Anna's disappearance. Parker is not about to follow protocols and rules. He is digging up all kinds of secrets....
I enjoyed reading this novel. John Connolly has a literary style of writing mysteries that sometimes causes booklover tingles, but he also tends to walk off of the mystery-genre reservation into the paranormal world as much as his hardcore private detective wanders into acting as judge and jury. Nonetheless, this is still a satisfying dark-mystery series.