"A truly harrowing murder plot… An ambitious foray…deep into Hannibal Lecter territory… The extravagantly gifted Connolly, living up to his title, is never too busy for another flashback to Bird's violent past en route to his final confrontation with the Traveling Man." – Kirkus Reviews"For me, the best thing about an author's first novel is its untarnished honesty. John Connolly's EVERY DEAD THING has that reckless intensity. Set against the gritty canvas of a serial killer loose in New York City, John Connolly's writing is as lilting and refreshing and as tempestuous as an Irish rainstorm. Warning: Don't start this book unless you have time to finish it." – Paul Lindsay, former FBI agent and author of Witness to the Truth"Classic American crime fiction; it's hard to believe that John Connolly was born and raised on the Emerald Isle." – amazon.com"[A] darkly ingenious debut novel… The New Orleanssequence of the novel sing[s]… The rural Virginia town is petty, bitter perfection: no mean feat for a native Dubliner. The prose rings of '40s L.A. noir, à la Chandler and Hammett, but the grisly deaths, poetic cops, and psychic episodes set this tale apart." – Publishers Weekly (starred review)"An ambitious, moral, disturbing tale with a stunning climax… In many ways its terror quotient exceeds that of Thomas Harris' great work." – The Times (London)"Connolly writes with confidence, a swaggering self-assurance that is almost breathtaking in a first novel." – Dublin Evening Herald (Ireland)"A debut novel of stunning complexity… The tension starts on the first page and continues right through the last, concluding in a dramatic and ambiguous way that could disturb readers' thoughts for days. A work of fiction that stays with you long after the book is closed is a rare and beautiful thing. This one goes right up there on the year's list of the best." – St. Petersburg Times (FL)"A nonstop, action-packed tale that also has a warm side where love and loyalty (not DNA) make a person human." – Barnesandnoble.com"Shades of The Silence of the Lambs here-but this debut book by Dubliner Connolly also has echoes of James Crumley, Patricia Cornwell, and Lawrence Block… A terrifying finale… Connolly manages to keep the tension simmering right to the very end." – Express Star (UK)"Absolutely spellbinding… This is not a book for the timid." – Naples Daily News (FL)"A big, meaty, often superbly written novel-astonishing, for a first-time author, in its scope and apparent veracity… A book of sudden, horrifying violence and no-holds-barred explicit scene-of-the-crime detail… A painstakingly researched crime novel, impressive both in terms of its driven central character [and] its scrupulously evoked geography… Impressive, too, is the superior, topflight prose and sheer momentum of the plot." – Tangled Web (UK)"[An] exciting, scary, and darkly humorous story that deserves to be a success." – Irish News"A highly intelligent and exciting novel, with almost enough action and story for two books. The grim and grisly events are emotionally balanced by the book's dark humor and Bird's vulnerability." – Library Journal"[A] stunning debut… Painstaking research, superb characterization, and an ability to tell a story that's chilling and thought-provoking make this a terrific thriller." – The Mirror (UK)"Brilliant… While Thomas Harris' Hannibal is the year's most anticipated thriller, John Connolly's EVERY DEAD THING might just be the best… A real adrenaline rush… Simply too good to be missed-or to put down." – The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
The first book in the Charlie Parker series
For I am every dead thing…I am re-begot
Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.
John Donne
“A Nocturnall Upon S. Lucies Day”
IT IS COLD in the car, cold as the grave. I prefer to leave the a/c on full, to let the falling temperature keep me alert. The volume on the radio is low but I can still hear a tune, vaguely insistent over the sound of the engine. It’s early R.E.M., something about shoulders and rain. I’ve left Cornwall Bridge about eight miles behind and soon I’ll be entering South Canaan, then Canaan itself, before crossing the state line into Massachusetts. Ahead of me, the bright sun is fading as day bleeds slowly into night.
The patrol car arrived first on the night they died, shedding red light into the darkness. Two patrolmen entered the house, quickly yet cautiously, aware that they were responding to a call from one of their own, a policeman who had become a victim instead of the resort of victims.
I sat in the hallway with my head in my hands as they entered the kitchen of our Brooklyn home and glimpsed the remains of my wife and child. I watched as one conducted a brief search of the upstairs rooms while the other checked the living room, the dining room, all the time the kitchen calling them back, demanding that they bear witness.
I listened as they radioed for the Major Crime Scene Unit, informing them of a probable double homicide. I could hear the shock in their voices, yet they tried to communicate what they had seen as dispassionately as they could, like good cops should. Maybe, even then, they suspected me. They were policemen and they, more than anyone else, knew what people were capable of doing, even one of their own.
And so they remained silent, one by the car and the other in the hallway beside me, until the detectives pulled up outside, the ambulance following, and they entered our home, the neighbors already gathering on their stoops, at their gates, some moving closer to find out what had happened, what could have been visited on the young couple beyond, the couple with the little blond girl.
“Bird?” I ran my hands over my eyes as I recognized the voice. A sob shuddered through my system. Walter Cole stood over me, McGee farther back, his face bathed by the flashes of the patrol car lights but still pale, shaken by what he had seen. Outside there was the sound of more cars pulling up. An EMT arrived at the door, distracting Cole’s attention from me. “The medical technician’s here,” said one of the patrolmen as the thin, whey-faced young man stood by. Cole nodded and gestured toward the kitchen.
“Birdman,” Cole repeated, this time with greater urgency and a harder tone to his voice. “Do you want to tell me what happened here?”
I pull into the parking lot in front of the flower shop. There is a light breeze blowing and my coattails play at my legs like the hands of children. Inside, the store is cool, cooler than it should be, and redolent with the scent of roses. Roses never go out of style, or season.
A man is bending down, carefully checking the thick waxy leaves of a small green plant. He rises up slowly and painfully as I enter.
“Evening,” he says. “Help you?”
“I’d like some of those roses. Give me a dozen. No, better make it two dozen.”
“Two dozen roses, yessir.” He is heavy-set and bald, maybe in his early sixties. He walks stiffly, hardly bending his knees. The joints of his fingers are swollen with arthritis.
“Air-conditioning is playing up,” he says. As he passes by the ancient control unit on the wall, he adjusts a switch. Nothing happens.
The store is old, with a long glass-fronted hothouse along the far wall. He opens the door and begins lifting roses carefully from a bucket inside. When he has counted twenty-four, he closes the door again and lays them on a sheet of plastic on the counter.
“Gift wrap ’em for ya?”
“No. Plastic is fine.”
He looks at me for a moment and I can almost hear the tumblers fall as the process of recognition begins.
“Do I know you from someplace?”
In the city, they have short memories. Farther out, the memories last longer.
Supplemental Crime Report
NYPD – Case Number: 96-12-1806
Offense: Homicide
Victim: Susan Parker, W/F Jennifer Parker, W/F
Location: 1219 Hobart Street, kitchen
Date: Dec. 12, 1996
Time: Around 2130 hrs
Means: Stabbing
Weapon: Edged weapon, possibly knife (not found)
Reporting Officer: Walter Cole, Detective Sergeant
Details: On December 13, 1996, I went to 1219 Hobart Street in response to a request by Officer Gerald Kersh for detectives to work a reported homicide.
