John Connolly, The White Road 1/12 lettered rebound in leather with marble sides, new intro and signed by the author.  This is the fourth novel in the detective series set in the Deep South of the US.

The mystery novel faced a period of change as the new millennium was reached. Old masters and novices strived for more realism, but John Connolly, perhaps as a consequence of his Irish nationality, took a more idiosyncratic approach.

While his books contain the idiomatic language and sharp wit that we associate with the traditional PI novel – along with a class of creepy criminal involved in gruesome behaviour more commonly found in the horror genre – they also possess what may be termed “the Irish gift to literature.” In bygone times, stories were conceived to be told or read aloud, and were therefore structured with a particular awareness of the power of voice. It was the teller who cast the spell, transporting listeners to alternative realities. Connolly’s approach, crosscutting through genres, has this same underpinning: he tells gripping stories, and they transport us to darker dominions.

The Charlie Parker series – now spanning eighteen novels – has other distinctive features. Connolly made a creative decision to opt for the freedom of action and movement offered by the roving private investigator, yet one based not in the author’s home city of Dublin, or even in the British Isles, but in a shadow version of Maine in the northeast USA, a liminal region that is neither entirely town nor country, where the line between present and past remains indistinct. Fascinatingly, many of Connolly’s protagonists – innocent and guilty alike – are acutely aware of this interconnectedness of what is and what was, a relationship given metaphorical expression in the concept of the “Honeycomb World.” From this realm emerges Connolly’s most unusual and audacious twist: the appearance of unearthly beings, be they angels or demons, sometimes described as “the lost ones.”

In The White Road, the fourth novel in the series, Parker is asked to assist in the defence of Atys Jones, accused of murdering a young white woman from a wealthy family. As Parker delves deeper into the case, it becomes clear that, down on the Georgia-South Carolina border, the baser aspects of the Confederacy continue to endure. Wealth, power, and status are exposed as shields for racism, servitude, and savagery. As the battle for the soul of the South – and, indeed, of the United States – rages on, The White Road is as relevant now as it ever was.