A Time of Torment by John Connolly

In the Portland, Maine area, jeweler Jerome Brunel finally decided to get a concealed-carry permit. Considering the amount of gems he bought and sold, it seemed a wise investment.

Until he stopped at a random gas station in the middle of nowhere. While inside, two low life creeps try to rob the place and Jerome, acting on instinct, manages to stop the robbery cold. Dead. Both of them.

Jerome is now a local hero. Doesn't help much with his wife. They are on the skids, mostly waiting for one to make the first call to a lawyer. But it's only a few months later when the cops show up with a warrant and find a whole bunch of kiddie porn on this laptop and in a closet. According to the cops, that constitutes intent to distribute. Jerome goes from hero to pariah in just a few months before getting shipped off to prison. A place not known to be welcoming to people who are, or might be, child molesters.

Problem is that Jerome is neither. Set up by some smart people. He does his best to serve out his term. When finally paroled, he struggles with life on the outside and eventually comes across Portland PI Charlie Parker and his two partners/muscle. Louis and Angel. Picture a couple of juiced-up NFL linebackers, only these two have some serious attitudes. But they will listen.

Jerome claims innocence and just wants to get his name cleared. Parker says OK and starts digging into the details of the shooting and Jerome's conviction. After only a couple days on the job, Jerome disappears. Parole board and the cops think he has skipped town. Parker doesn't.

The investigation gets going in earnest when Parker tracks down a particularly bad con from the prison. Gave Jerome a really bad time while imprisoned. This guy hung something known as the Dead King over Jerome's head. Tracking the con and the Dead King leads Parker and his two protectors to the West Virginia boondocks in the state's smallest, poorest, and least likely to be anything county.

In this county is a parcel of land that has remained in the hands of the families who settled there in the 1700s. The locals refer to it as The Cut. A place that if you weren't born into, you weren't likely to ever live, want to live or have anything to do with. Mostly self-sufficient, they keep to themselves and police themselves. No need for the sheriff to enter The Cut. Sure they've run a few drugs, but what small time town in WV hasn't?  It keeps a little money coming in for when they need things from the outside.

But their real source of big income is in selling babies. They kidnap teenage girls, imprison them, and keep them pregnant. A shady lawyer up in Ohio sets up adoptions for big bucks. But some boys in The Cut screwed up. They killed someone they thought needed killing and buried the corpse too shallow and it was found. The victim wasn't a local, so now the sheriff, state police, and FBI all  smell blood in the water.

But none more curious than Parker. From the act of a reluctant hero has become a tangle of not only shady connections between Maine and West Virginia, but also of blood lines, lust amongst the leaders of The Cut, and the results of generations of inbreeding in The Cut.

I honestly think that we MRB boys got so obsessed with Michael Connolly and the Harry Bosch character that we sort of ignored John Connolly and Charlie Parker. While both write about crime, their writing styles couldn't more different. Michael delivers direct, a mostly in your face narrative. John, on the other hand, writes in a far more eloquent and lyrical style. Closer to 'fiction' and 'literature' than 'mystery.' The book really was hard to put down. No matter where I was when I had to stop, I found myself glancing back at my Kindle wishing I could read further. I'd put his gift for descriptive narrative closer to a couple other favs like Robert McCammon or William Kent Kruger. Almost artistic or musical in his delivery. Captivating.

Surprisingly, at least to me, this is the 14th Charlie Parker novel and based on some backstory from #13, I honestly think I'm sorry that I came late to this party. Because of the graceful style and intricate plotting and pacing, I think I'd be wise to start back at #1. Not many series that grab me like that. Last one I can recall is the Longmire novels of Craig Johnson.

Just published in August 2016.

ECD

Just a comment from WCD. I agree that the quality of writing is good, but the book is really, really dark - child kidnapping and murder. I got into the middle of this one and decided I just wasn't in the mood for the subject material, and I quit reading at that point. Life is too short and there are so many books to read. Thanks for the review from my reading partner and I'm glad you often have more of cast iron stomach than I do.

WCD