Rating: 
Summary: Bloodbath in the bayou
Review: Every Dead Thing is an incredibly intense accounting of the events surrounding the brutal and ritualistic murders of Susan and Jennifer Parker, wife and daughter of NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker. After a night of boozing to dull the pain of a failing marriage, Parker returns home to find the dissected bodies of his family. Their skin has been flayed open to expose their internal organs and their faces have been cut off. Criminal investigation leads nowhere and eventually Parker leaves the force.He is pursuing some private investigation jobs, one of which was set up by his old detective partner. The case involves the disappearance of a young woman, Catherine Demeter, a confidant of a wealthy trustee of a huge trust. Parker unearths and smashes a child kidnapping ring that tortures and kills young children for the pleasure of perverted wealthy clients. While investigating, Parker gets a feeling that there is some relationship to the murders of his family. At the urging of his friend New Orleans FBI agent, Woolrich, he gets drawn to Louisiana to find the murderer of his family. A psychic old Creole woman living in the murky bayous of Cajun country has had a vision about the murderer she knows as the Traveling Man. It seems like he has been plying his trade of dissecting his victims, like Parker's family, in Louisiana as well. Parker recruits some friends to help him seek the killer in Louisiana. Rachel Wolfe a college professor and psychological profiler helps Parker try to understand the personality and motives of the Traveling Man. A gay couple, Louis, a deadly assassin and Angel a cat burglar act as Parker's body guards and firepower. Together with the local police and FBI they use Parker as bait to lure the Traveling Man amidst a continuing rash of beastly slayings. I'm not sure where John Connolly honed his craft, but he does a masterful job in conjuring up this stomach turning plot. He really manages to capture the essence of the depraved criminal mind displayed by the Traveling Man and other minor characters. He makes us all feel both the anguish and desperation felt by Parker in his quest to solve the mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: A different type of thriller...
Review: From the start, you begin to realise that this is a rather different crime thriller than the normal offerings. Written from a first person perspective, the story unravels rather slow at first. However, it soon picks up as more characters are revealed and the locations change. Development of the characters is at first very deep, it then speeds up, but thankfully returns towards the end, as the climax approaches. I don't think its fair to give away too much of the plot in a review, but I do think its useful to provide a template of the world. The trail follows the efforts of an ex-policeman to track down a child-killer. The comparisons that this book has received with Silence of the Lambs etc. are not without reason. The child killer described is arguably more mysterious than the characters in those books, especially as the killer is not the prime target of the story. Unlike most books of this kind, the killer is not focused upon, leaving the opportunity to develop the character of the lead and his aides. The story has a few twists and turns, and I can't really say that I didn't pick up the clues as to who was the culprit. This disn't distract from what I can only describe as a well put together story, with great emphasis on the emotional impact of the subject matter. The characters are really well placed, we've got hired-guns, mafia, drug dealers, perverts, fbi, police and a host of others added for fun. Each is expertly placed, which is the key to a good character. My only critique of the book, is that the neglect to focus on the killer at all, led to a rather shaky motive and climax pairing, that didn't quite answer all of the questions that the book so expertly proposes. Nevertheless, I was engaged in the story from start to finish, and would recommend it to anyone who is going on a long journey, or wants to while away a rainy weekend with a good nervy book.
Rating: 
Summary: Cumbersome First Novel
Review: The writing brought this mystery up to three stars. Unfortunately, the book was way too full. There easily could have been two books made of what is packed into this novel. There are two major threads with several sidelights thrown in as well. The first portion is mostly introductory and plods. The narrator hero then finally gets on the scent of one of the killers he is out to find and the story flows very well. The plot then moves from New York to New Orleans and again the reader is subjected to some plodding introductory information and some sidelights that seem superfluous. The New Orleans portion dragged again until the narrator is directly on the scent. Another weak point is that the real killer was pretty obvious - or at least easy to guess at. All that having been said, Mr. Connolly is a terrific writer and the writing keeps the reader in the book through the times it gets bogged down. This book was recommended to me by a friend with the cautionary words that all of his books are not this gory and the others are better as the character develops. A warning - this is very gory, it is nearly impossible to keep count of how many gruesome murders are described in this book. I reluctantly recommend this book. The two plots are good, even though so unrelated they probably should have been in two books. The writing, as I've noted is very good. The narrator character seems as if he could be interesting if and when developed more. The writing and character is enough for me to read Mr. Connolly's next books since I've been told this is the foundation to better enjoy the others.
Rating:
Summary: A RIVETING THRILLER OF VIOLENCE AND SUSPENSE!!!
Review: John Connolly's debut novel, EVERY DEAD THING, is the story of former NYPD detective Charlie "Bird" Parker, a man who has experienced tragedy as few other people have. While still a homicide detective and an alcoholic, he had a fight with his wife one night and left the house in anger. He stopped in at the local pub, got drunk, and then returned home several hours late to find that his wife and young daughter had been skinned alive by a madman. At first a suspect for the killing of his own family, Parker's alibi holds up, but in time he is nevertheless forced to leave the police department. He stops drinking and makes it his life ambition to track down the man who slaughtered his wife and daughter. Clues lead him to New Orleans where an old voodoo woman tells him about a serial killer known as the Traveling Man. This is the person Parker has been searching for. The Traveling Man has killed countless times and will certainly kill again, unless someone puts a stake through his evil heart. In the meantime, Parker is asked by a former colleague to track down a missing person...a woman who's younger sister was murdered by a serial killer years before. The case leads Parker to Haven, Virginia and puts him on the trail of an atrocious murderer who's been killing children for over thirty years. Parker will soon discover that this animal knows the identity of the person who killed his family. Eventually, Parker will head back to Louisiana and-caught in the middle of a bloodbath between two rivaling mobsters-face the Traveling Man in final confrontation of life and death. EVERY DEAD THING is a thick novel of intricate structure, combining three plots that are interconnected with each other. The first deals with Parker's quest for revenge as he hunts down the Traveling Man, while the second branches off into a journey of utter darkness and abomination, beginning with the disappearance of Catherine Demeter and leading to a monster who gains unimaginable pleasure by torturing and killing little children. The third plot deals with Parker's eventual involvement with the New Orleans' mob and how it ties in with his search for the Traveling Man. Complex in scope and underlying subplots, EVERY DEAD THING will not only shock and surprise you, but will also ask you to think about the very nature of evil and its place in our society. This is definitely not a novel for the lighthearted or squeamish. It's filled with an abundance of violence and death as well as an array of richly drawn characters that reek of unadulterated evil and will terrify you with their utter believability. Even the heroes (Charlie Parker and his friends, Angel and Louis) are touched by a certain degree of darkness. They're not saints fighting for the goodness of mankind, but are rather killers who are more than willing to do whatever it takes to rid the world of these soulless individuals. John Connolly has written a powerful novel that is entertaining, thought provoking, and truly frightening. It will leave you wondering about the hundreds of human monsters that hide within our midst, hoping that there are men like Charlie Parker who aren't afraid to take these creatures down the hard way. For those of you who enjoy the works of Thomas Harris and James Patterson, pick up a copy of EVERY DEAD THING. After you finish reading it, I guarantee that you'll rush to get the other two books (DARK HOLLOW & THE KILLING KIND) in the "Charlie Parker" series. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Rating:
Summary: Serial murders most foul
Review: Once upon a time, Charlie "Bird" Parker was an NYPD cop ... with a drinking problem. One night, while out on a binge, his wife and daughter are butchered in a manner so horrific that it defies description here. (This is, after all, a family website.) Leaving the force, Charlie's obsession is to track down the killer, since identified as The Traveling Man. This crime novel is actually a two-for-one deal. A large part of the book's first half is devoted to Parker's investigation of a missing person incident, taken on at the request of an old pal on the NYPD. It bears no relation to his search for his family's executioner, but mainly serves to acquaint the reader with the larger concept of "serial killer", and introduce several players that remain in the plot to the novel's end, including Bird's disheveled FBI pal, Woolrich. (I didn't know "disheveled" was in the FBI dress code. Where's J. Edgar when you need him?) This is a hard-boiled, gritty book - a triumph of a first novel by author John Connolly. He introduces us to villains that are truly nasty in the scariest sense, and who make Vlad the Impaler and Josef Mengele look like a kindly grandfathers in comparison. In any case, the identity of The Traveling Man is not resolved until twenty pages from the end, and involves an eye-popping plot twist that will have you looking forward to Connolly's next offering. However, if his subsequent thrillers continue to cast such monsters, I don't know if my imagination can take it. I'm getting to be a sissy in my old age.
Rating:
Summary: The best author I have read in a long time!
Review: This is the first book in a series that will keep you up late nights. First of all b/c you won't be able to put it down and secondly, b/c John Connolly writes in such vivid detail - you will have the creeps! I have read the whole series now and the latest "Bad Men". Connolly never disappoints.
Rating:
Summary: A very convoluted novel
Review: There are moments of lyrical terror in this book, but overall I found it to be very hard to follow and to finish. Usually, with a "thriller," I can't stop reading until the tale is finished, but this one, with basically two storylines that relate to one another only in the vaguest of ways, was 'way too complicated. Just as I was in the groove with one storyline, Connolly would pop another, with different characters, except for Bird Parker, a different crime, different clues, etc. etc. It made for tedious reading. Still, there is lots to like about this book: the air of menace you could cut with a knife, the sharp dialogue, and of the complex character of Charlie Bird Parker. I will certainly give John Connolly another whirl, but this one fell short for me.
Rating:
Summary: Every Dead Thing---and a lot of things die!
Review: This is one heck of a first novel. Charlie Parker ("Bird" to his friends) is a police detective who's lost his wife and daughter to a particularly horrific serial killer who not only murders them, but slices off their faces. Since he was drinking at the corner tavern at the time, he feels guilty, crawls into a bottle, and loses his job. Some months later, having crawled out of said bottle, he agrees to take on work as an investigator to make ends meet. His first case involves finding a rich boy's girlfriend, but when he looks, he finds (of course) much more than he expected to. This novel has everything in it that you can imagine or want in a crime novel. The killers are gory and vicious, there are numerous shootouts and chases, the women are beautiful but reluctant, heck he even has a (sort of) pair of gay role models. OK, so they're a retired hit man and a retired thief, but they dress well and have a hip repartee going that's a great deal of fun. The novel is very long (460+ pages, with a rather small font) and the action is broken up with long, almost poetically descriptive passages, but it moves along nicely. I will agree with the one guy who said that things get complex. There are so many characters and murders and plot threads that at times you almost wish he'd provided a cast of characters or something. All in all, though, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to others. The one real proviso is the goriness: be aware going in, this isn't a pretty book.
Rating:
Summary: a whole lot of dead things
Review: Every dead thing is John Connolly's debut novel.
I read his other book's first for some reason and, I liked the other books more. Every dead thing is the debut novel of Charlie {bird} Parker, the private investigator who not only know's every mob kingpin in every city in America but has gay hitmen for friend's. In this book there is more blood and death than most books written on world war two.The story line is confusing and the ending is no suprise.
Rating:
Summary: dense and solid, if slightly flawed, novel
Review: Connolly's debut novel has some strong writing, with a good attention to detail and description. Yes, like other readers, I found it hard to believe that he hasn't spent his life living in the US. Yet, there are some problems. Mainly, there is probably too much detail-- so much so (particularly regarding all the murders) that, as I got further and further along, I almost felt like I had to take notes to keep track of all the people and events and the connections between them, not to mention the wealth of information about minor characters. This also had the unfortunate effect of making the ending seem somewhat muted-- rather than gathering steam at the climax, one is relieved to see the novel finally coming to a close. And yet, despite all this, the killer remains somewhat of an enigma-- we still don't really know why he did the things he did, or how (What made him become so psychopathic? How did he find time to do all this and elude capture? How did he hone his surgical skills? Where did he get the barrels to put the victims in? If the police had examined the initial suspect too closely, would they have discovered he was the wrong one?) And finally, the Pet Peeve Department: It's "doughnut", not "donut". Still, this is worth reading for the writing alone.
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