Review: A Book of Bones

A Book of Bones by John Connolly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When a new novel in John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series lands I immediately drop whatever I’m reading and race through it. The race was slower this time, not only because A Book of Bones is nearly 700 pages long but also because a lot of the story takes place in London, and in a part of London I don’t know very well and in which I have just started to spend a few days a week, so I had to take time to look up the locations.
This is a sprawling, Dickensian beast of a novel which picks up just after The Woman in the Woods and which takes Parker to Arizona and, with Louis and Angel, to The Netherlands and England, in pursuit of Quayle and Mors as the saga of the Fractured Atlas culminates in Quayle’s attempt to bring about the end of the world. The plot, which involves ritual murder/sacrifice in locations throughout England, is interspersed with documents and diary entries which give historical context to Quayle’s quest and reference, among others, Jack the Ripper and Nicholas Hawksmoor, as Connolly pulls together threads which he has been weaving for years, to the original Fractured Atlas novella and, even further back, to the Travelling Man and the events that set Charlie Parker on the path which brought him here.
It is an astounding piece of work, obviously not a jumping on point for new readers, which is incredibly satisfying for those who have been following the series. The Book of Bones leans more towards the horror side while still being an effective mystery and there are echoes of Conan Doyle and Lovecraft, parts of it remind me of Ramsey Campbell, but it is very John Connolly. And, as this part of the narrative climaxes, Connolly throws in a final line that stops the reader dead and makes it clear that Parker’s story is not yet finished. In years to come, I really believe that this will be considered one of the great epic series of whatever genre into which you want to put it.

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