I'm not a huge fan of series, but I have read some of the other books in this series, including the last 3 books, and they seem to be trending more towards the paranormal and less towards the thriller genre, but maybe my memories of the earlier books are faulty. In any event, you shouldn't start reading this series unless you are prepared to devote a significant amount of time to it. The books have been slowly doling out a complicated and apparently endless mythology of spooky and extremely violent goings-on with no conclusion in sight. I keep reading them though because I enjoy the writing style and I like the dialog and interplay among Charlie Parker and his colleagues Louis and Angel. I also like Charlie's daughter Sam and her dead half-sister Jennifer.

Charlie is now working on a retainer for the FBI and is asked to locate Jaycob Eklund, a missing private investigator. The chapters of Charlie's investigation are interspersed with chapters dealing with his relationship with Sam and her mother Rachel and chapters introducing numerous characters who are involved in various forms of paranormal events (floating men, precognition, ghostly voices, etc.). My major problem with the book is that there are way too many characters to keep track of. A lot of them are dead by the end of the book, but I was not invested enough in any of them to care. There is also too much paranormal mumbo-jumbo happening here - ghosts, angels, the Brethren, the Collector, the Hollow Men. People who come in contact with any of these are in serious danger.

While I like Charlie and his crew, I wanted a more focused plot and fewer characters. I'm ready for the series to reach some conclusion with its underlying supernatural storyline. Enough with the spooky groups of bad guys. Cut to the chase about what is lying in wait for Charlie and let me see exactly what powers Sam has. But I guess then the series would be over.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Traditionally crime fiction was about reason, rationality, and logic - detectives using their acute minds and observation skills to deduce who was responsible for (usually) a murder. Even as the genre has expanded far beyond the strictures of Holmesian or Golden Age puzzling whodunnits, nowadays most crime fiction is still firmly grounded in 'the real world'.

Few crime writers dare to blend the supernatural or paranormal into their mix, but among those that do, Irishman John Connolly is the platinum standard. His Charlie Parker series is simply superb, and Connolly is one of the very best crime writers, of any sub-genre, on the planet. A poet of the genre.

This fifteenth instalment in the award-winning series ramps up the paranormal elements even further; it feels like the mythology Connolly has been stoking novel by novel is bubbling to a furious boil.

Parker is roped in by a shady FBI agent to try and hunt down what's happened to an unconventional private eye who was delving into hauntings with a deadly edge. Meanwhile his home life is in disarray: he's battling his ex Rachel over custody to their daughter Sam. Rachel blames Parker and his crime fighting life for putting Sam in danger, unaware that there may be far darker dangers lurking.

A Game of Ghosts is a tricky book to review. Connolly is both a fine prose stylist and excellent storyteller. There's depth and intelligence to his tales. He regularly pens five-star reads that challenge best-of-the-year lists (or should), and I'd expect to see A Game of Ghosts on a few this year too.

But for me, I wonder if this instalment might not be the best one to start with if you're a new reader to the Charlie Parker series. Although it can stand on its own, and is another superlative tale, I kind of feel like you might be better off to have read at least a couple of prior Parker books to fully appreciate all that's going on. Not from an understanding or plot perspective, but just in terms of getting extra resonance and satisfaction when it comes to the character arcs and supernatural elements. .

Connolly turns the paranormal dial up high; there are various ghostly or demonic figures lurking as Parker hunts for the truth of Eklund's disappearance. This book crackles with malice and threat.

There's a palpable sense of evil throughout the Parker books. The 'bad guys' are really, really bad - true grotesques in the gothic tradition. Layer in Connolly's literary stylings, and you have something unique and quite special in the crime writing field. Highly recommended - whether to dive into straight away, or put by the bedside table as you work your way through some of the backlist.

Some of John Connally's novels have worked for me, but A Game of Ghosts was not one of them. There was just too much ghost and paranormal activity in this one and I couldn't finish it. He is a good writer, but I think he went overboard on the ghosts in this one.

A Game of Ghosts (Charlie Parker #15) by John Connolly, was an interesting book, but didn’t grab my attention as I had hoped it would. Many of the familiar characters were in it, Charlie, Angel, Louis, Ross, Sam, Jennifer, Rachel and the Collector. Connolly also loads in a handful of secondary and tertiary characters, including some interesting and wacky people; Mother, her son Phillip, gangsters, and the various Brethern members.

I found the complex plot, and sub-plots a bit confusing, [ Sam’s increasing abilities, Rachel’s custody plans, Phillip’s bad guy plans, Sally and Elenor’s relationship and then Kirk on top of that, the hollowmen, and many more (hide spoiler)] and this is what challenged my liking of the overall story. I just felt there was too much going on.

Many thanks to the publisher, the author, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this new novel.

For me, this was a three star read.

I have read every Charlie Parker book and I have loved every one. In this book Charlie Parker is tasked to find a missing investigator and is not told the real reason why. As he gets closer and closer it becomes clear this man was more than a simple investigator. He has been following disappearances and homicides that may go back decades and he has been working with the husband of a missing woman who was missing for a couple of years and whose body has just been discovered and she has not been dead as long as she has been missing. The clues take Charlie and his crew into the path of organized crime and Rachel has started proceeding for sole custody of the daughter. I cannot wait for the next Charlie Parker book. A great read. I would like to thank the Publisher and Net Galley for the chance to read this ARC.

Get ready for a spine-tingling ghost story as Charlie Parker once again delves into the supernatural in this fifteenth book in the series.

Who is Charlie Parker? A detective who 'died not once but three times following [a] shooting at his home and was brought back by the physicians. But the man who came back was not the same as the one who had fallen under a volley of shotgun blasts and pistol shots. He had seen what lay beyond, and he remembered.'

Charlie is under contract to SAC Ross of the FBI and this time he has been assigned to investigate the disappearance of Jaycob Eklund, a private investigator who has been looking into a series of strange disappearances and murders that he feels are somehow tied to a clan called The Brethren with roots in America's early past whose founder was a charismatic man named Peter Magus. Around 1860, he and his followers would prey on travelers: stealing, murdering and then hiding the evidence. Magus established a settlement for his clan in Capstead near the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Eventually their acts of murder and mayhem became so infamous that authorities attacked and most of the clan were killed in a Waco-style conflagration. They became known as the Capstead Martyrs. But a few escaped...

Charlie and his two friends Angel and Louis follow the trail of clues, looking into Eklund's life and work. The relationship those three guys have is always good for a laugh. More heavy though are the problems Charlie is having with Rachel, the mother of his child. She is suing for sole custody of Sam but the girl has other plans. And then there's Jennifer; that's on a whole different plane.

The cast of characters is fleshed out with some interesting and wacky people along the way--there's the Collector, and Mother, gangsters, and a nosey neighbor, just to name a few.

Be prepared to not get much sleep till you finish this one. There's a couple of surprising twists at the end which make me say the Charlie Parker series just keeps getting better and better.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read an arc of this thrilling new novel.

John Connolly writes two kinds of books. Some of them are good; some are damned good. This is one of the latter. It’s the fifteenth in the Charlie Parker series, and it marks a turning point; previously a thriller series with mystic overtones, it’s now a stew combining multiple genres. Connelly heats his cauldron and pours in a healthy dose of suspense, mixes in some detective fiction, and blends in horror and fantasy as well, along with a pinch of humor. The overall result is deliciously creepy, the kind of story that stays with me after I’ve read a dozen other less memorable books. Big thanks go to Net Galley and Atria for the DRC, which I read free and early in exchange for this honest review. The book is for sale now.

Parker has a haunting past indeed; in the first book of this series, his wife and daughter Jennifer are murdered by a man that has come looking to kill Parker. Our hero sets out to find and kill the man that did it, and he succeeds; yet his thirst for stark, take-no-prisoners justice is not satisfied. Now the father of another daughter, Samantha, that lives with his ex, our current mystery finds Parker in a conversation with the girl’s uncle, who asks hard questions about Parker’s risky behavior. He wants to know why Parker keeps chasing bad guys now that his initial quest has been fulfilled. Why hunt down evil-doers when he might adopt a lifestyle more in line with the best interests of his still-living child? Parker responds,

“I do it because I’m afraid that if I don’t, nobody will. I do it because if I turn away, someone else might suffer the way I have. I do it because it’s an outlet for my anger. I do it for reasons that even I don’t understand.
“But mostly,” said Parker, “I do it because I like it…
“We can’t leave these people to wander the world unchallenged.”

The premise here is that Parker is sent by FBI agent Ross, who he has agreed to work for under terms mostly his own, in search of Jaycob Ecklund, a man also employed by Ross who has vanished. Once Parker’s search for Ecklund commences we learn that the missing man was a ghostbuster of sorts, a man with a basement full of files on the paranormal. Many others are interested in Ecklund also, and the plot ramps up quickly and doesn’t relent until the last page is done.

The plot here is complex, and Connolly weaves in a host of characters, both living and dead. We have The Brethren, most of whom are alive yet already damned. We have Angel and Louis, a pair of characters that have appeared throughout the series that work with Parker; their darkly amusing banter helps lighten an otherwise almost unbearably intense plot. We have clairvoyants; we have The Brethren; the hollow men; we have a number of murder victims, before, during, and after their deaths; there is the Collector, who is tied to Parker like a falcon, and must always return to him.
And we have organized crime figures Phillip and his Mother, who abduct him in order to find out what Parker does and what he knows, in a civilized way, of course.

“There will be tea.”

Mother is the best villain this reviewer has seen in a long time.

The entire book is brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed. And although Connolly’s series is worth reading from the get-go, those that hop in without having read earlier books from this series will be able to follow and enjoy this shapeshifting mindbender of a novel just fine, but those that genuinely believe in ghosts may not want to read it at night.

Highly recommended to those that love excellent novels of suspense.

4.5/5 stars!

This time around Charlie Parker is hired to look into the disappearance of Jaycob Eklund. Jaycob is a P.I. that has mysteriously vanished while investigating the history of a group named The Brethren. Louis and Angel get involved and the Collector and his aging father do as well. What FUN!

FBI Agent Edgar Ross is the man who hires Charlie and I still don't trust him or his motives. He won't even tell Charlie why he's searching for Eklund. I'm not sure where Mr. Connolly is going with this relationship, but I have a bad feeling about it, for sure.

Louis and Angel trade insults as always, but in this book their love became a little more real to me. You'll see why if you read it. (You SHOULD read it!)

Also playing a part in this volume are Rachel and Sam, Charlie's ex-girlfriend and (living) daughter, respectively. Rachel, understandably, is still angry and upset after what happened to Sam in the last book and is now taking legal steps regarding Sam's custody. Trusty Moxie, Charlie's lawyer, is on the case. Unfortunately, Rachel doesn't ask Sam how she feels about all this, but Sam makes her feelings known-in a way that is uniquely her own.

I loved this book! I believe I am seeing the beginning of the end, off in the distance, and that makes me sad. However, I am hoping that perhaps the series will continue in some other form, (view spoiler). But if I don't get I will still be happy, because I believe that the Charlie Parker books have become the best ongoing series out there, bar none. They are consistently interesting, well written and just plain fun-and considering how dark some of them are, that's quite a feat!

I love Charlie, Louis and Angel and I love YOU, John Connolly! I can't wait to see what happens next! I highly recommend A Game of Ghosts to fans of the series, and to new fans, (but I strongly suggest you read them in order.)

*Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*

First published in Great Britain in 2017; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on July 4, 2017

A Game of Ghosts advances and, to an extent, brings to an end subplots that have forming in recent Charlie Parker novels. Familiar names or entities relating to those subplots include the Collector, the lawyer Eldritch, and the Brethren.

There are more ghosts than usual in this Charlie Parker novel. Charlie’s daughter Sam is still visited by the ghost of her half-sister Jennifer. Tobey Thayer foresees death, sometimes in the form of ghosts. Mike MacKinnon disappeared after seeing ghosts, and now his son Alex has seen one, portending the arrival of evil in his home. Other characters see or become ghosts as the novel progresses.

Charlie Parker is now on the government payroll as a private contractor. FBI Agent Ross has assigned him to find a private investigator named Jaycob Eklund who, like Parker, is a private FBI asset. Eklund has dropped off the radar.

The Brethren have taken note of Eklund and of a man named Routh, also known as the Cousin. Routh and Thayer are both connected to Eklund. Those connections furnish Parker’s link to evil, both mortal and supernatural, as Parker and his two associates, Angel and Louis, work their way through a trail of dead bodies while trying to find a living person who might know what happened to Eklund. The mystery puts Parker in the middle of an intriguing power struggle between a widow and her son.

As always, John Connolly writes with an abundance of style and flair. The story moves quickly. The plot is a bit less engaging than some other Parker novels, in part because Connolly seems have used A Game of Ghosts to tie up some of the dangling subplots that he advanced in earlier novels. For that reason, this novel focuses less on unraveling a mystery and more on the supernatural elements that always lurk in a Parker novel.

Given that Parker’s dead daughter is a ghostly character in these novels, and that his living daughter seems to have supernatural powers, there’s little doubt that the supernatural will continue to play an important role in the series. Now that the Brethren plotline is largely resolved, I’d like to see the novels give less emphasis to supernatural elements, because I think Parker novels are best when Parker is hunting down a killer or some other evildoer. Parker doesn’t do much of anything in A Game of Ghosts as he’s usually a half step behind the evildoers, who often hog the stage. Still, A Game of Ghosts is an easy, enjoyable read, and it paves the way for fresh plots in future novels.

RECOMMENDED

Every year I look forward to reading a new Charlie Parker story, with Louis and Angel of course. I download it onto my kindle, and then let it sit there for awhile. It's a form of torture I suppose. The anticipation of knowing I can read it, but the sweet agony of holding off just a wee bit longer. When I finally start reading, I devour it...just up to the final 100 pages. Then I nurse it. Now begins another agonizing wait until next year. Dang. The title of this book was dead on. I had a few moments when my short hairs stood straight up! One of the series part-time regulars is killed off, and for someone who managed to scare the dickens out of me for so many years, his passing was incredibly moving. As for the story as a whole? Please, it's John Connolly. Things get eerie, Angel and Louie will make you laugh, and again we're left wondering, just what the heck is going on with Sam? Yep, I'd recommend this book and author. My thanks to Netgalley and the Publishers for this arc.

I read a lot of books, but if I had to pick just let's say five books to read during one year would the latest Charlie Parker book be among them. It strange to think back to the first time I read a Charlie Parker book (not from the beginning) and how I liked the book, but never thought that one day would come when it would be like Christmas every time a new book would be released.

So, how was A Game of Ghosts? Well, let me put it this way. This is a series that keep on being great, this is the fifteenth book and I loved it from the first page until the last and I both wanted to end the book and at the same time did I not want it to end.

In A Game of Ghosts is Charlie Parker contacted by FBI agent Edgar Ross to track down the missing private detective Jaycob Eklund. However, as usual, it's not an ordinary case, Eklund is obsessed with ghost and his investigation into a missing man have led him to the Brethren, a group of people both of this world and next and Parker, who has a track record of being something of a destroyer of evil people and groups is starting to get too close to them for their liking. And, the Brethren has reason to worry because The Collector is also interested in the case. And, he's not a man to cross. And as usual, has Parker his faithful friends Louis and Angel to help him out.

A Game of Ghosts is a fantastic book. I was deeply worried about the life of my favorite characters while reading the book, and the passing of one of them was both a surprise and something that saddened me. I loved the part Parker's daughters Sam and Jennifer played in the book and the ending made me crave more. Definitely one of the best books I have read this year!

I received an advance copy of this novel from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

One of my favorite mystery series with a supernatural element that started out low key in earlier installments and has come more and more to the forefront. Clearly, we are building toward a big confrontation with a barely described demonic entity and stage is being set for the showdown.

In A Game of Ghosts Charlie Parker, Louis, and Angel have been hired to locate a missing private investigator who handles cases for the FBI that are too otherworldly for the regular agents to handle. When he goes missing Parker and company is really the only team for the job of tracking him down and bringing him home—if he is still alive, that is. Unlike his predecessor, who worked alone, Parker has the advantage in that he always brings Louis and Angel with him—two guys that always believe in bringing a submachine gun to a knife fight.

And if that trio is not formidable enough (and they are, make no mistake), Charlie brings supernatural weapons as well. He is guarded by his dead wife and daughter. Meeting up with them is very unpleasant if you plan on trying to harm Parker. Also, reprising his continuing role, is the Collector, trailing smoke and the shadows of evil men and collecting up Charlie’s enemies who have corrupted their souls enough to get his attention and feeding them to his hollow men. He follows Parker and always keeps the playing field more or less even, although Charlie and company are the odds on favorite in any fight.

This is a “middle” book. As much fun as it is, I feel that it is setting the stage for something bigger to come. And that something involves Charlie’s daughter Sam . If Charlie and his crew are dangerous, Sam is an outright game changer. You get hints of her ability in earlier installments and any character that attempts to attack her or her father is very quickly overmatched. She is being saved, however, I think, for when the heavy hitter arrives. I feel that we have only examined the tip of the ice berg with her.

Fair warining: This is the 15th book in a series and I cannot recommend strongly enough starting at the beginning. There are many references to events from the past, all the way back to the very first book. Knowing the background on these wonderful characters and their carefully constructed story arcs brings much more enjoyment than starting in a later volume and then trying to catch up. These are not stand alone novels in my view.

John Connolly is an amazing writer and Charlie Parker a great creation. This outing contains so many aspects of the mystery, with supernatural overtones, that I appreciate, that it's difficult to know where to begin. First of course is Parker himself with his unconventional life, family and cohorts who might bristle under the title of friends. There is an unexplained disappearance, hints of otherworldly influences, (one of my favorite aspects in suspense novels), mysterious daughter(s). I do have to pick up more of the back story, though my enjoyment of this book was not lessened by my lack of knowledge.

As I have been advised by other readers, more experienced with this series, the violence, while present, is not gratuitous and so much of the story is carried out in a more thought-full sphere, as Charlie works to piece together multiple strands of a large puzzle.

All in all, an excellent story, well told.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

If you’re enjoying something immensely, why would you ever want it to stop? That’s the nub of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series of supernatural crime-thrillers. The author and his audience certainly seem to relish Charlie’s annual appearance in which he confronts the latest cult of ancient evil to come crawling out of the undergrowth. But like all the best series, the Parker saga is being told in slow time and the overall arc creeps forward infinitesimally with each episode. Much like the X-Files, which has so far taken ten seasons to explain exactly nothing while bringing Mulder and Scully in a long looping U-turn, Connolly delivers a self-contained good vs evil narrative in each book… while dropping huge great hints at what’s really going on with Parker’s mission, his cohorts, and his increasingly intimidating, otherworldly daughter.

It’s a tough trick, doing ‘the same but different’ every time, but in ‘Ghosts’ Connolly exerts his considerable wordsmithing skills to ace it. With the previous, fourteenth, novel in the series, I grumbled on about him needing a new story to tell: this time around I just indulged myself. So what if we’ve read most of it before? We keep coming back for more. Well, I do.

In fact, ‘Ghosts’ does some sneakily sophisticated things which can be obscured by the page-turning pace of the plot. It delivers the comfortable familiarity of a cracking cast of characters, offset by the unsettling strangeness which has become keynote of this series. It explores the gruesome violence of sinister religions, the insidious evil which hides in small-town society, bakes cakes on Saturday, attends church on Sunday, and mass murders on Monday. Simultaneously, Connolly provides a social commentary about the tricky business of marital divorce and disputed child custody. It’s far from straightforward when the child involved sees dead people…

He’s also a dab hand with dialogue. There’s a splendid scene in a diner featuring detective Charlie, hitman Louis and his scruffy, loveable and lethal partner, Angel. The situation is perfectly observed and adroitly delivered: Angel has a medical ‘something’ but is deeply in denial. The waitress rewards his procrastination with a perfectly-timed verbal jab. It’s a subtle snapshot of human empathy, full of warmth, humour and stark mortality, deftly smuggled into the subtext of genre fiction.

So: to the whole spookynatural thing. The Charlie Parker stories started out as private investigations with a hint of oddness. Now the weird schtick is front and central. You can still indulge in some cognitive dissonance, and tell yourself that the echoes from the past and perceptions of an afterlife are simply the sheen that the characters’ cast on strange events. The paranormal aspects are just explanations for why bad people do bad things. It’s all interpretation. Charlie’s daughter isn’t really some kind of demon queen in training. You can tell yourself that. If you like.

If you’re new to John Connolly and don’t like deviations into the unexplained then you should probably starts back at the beginning of the Charlie Parker series – see if you like the cut of his jib before things wander into the twilight zone. Similarly, those readers who want more old-fashioned detecting and less evil incarnate are likely to be frustrated by the obvious aspects of the uncanny ‘Ghosts.’ Can I suggest you try Steve Hamilton, Giles Blunt, John Sandford or Stephen Hunter instead?

Me, I’m wondering which tribal god is next up to bat…

9/10

After taking a backseat for much of the prior book's narrative, PI Charlie Parker returns as the central focus to A Game of Ghosts. Escaping into the works of John Connolly is always a welcome retreat for me, although this fifteenth entry into this author's eponymous detective series fell a bit flat for me.

Still recovering, and likely permanently diminished, from the attempt on his life a few books back, Parker is back in action and tasked with locating a missing private eye, Jaykob Ecklund. This investigation leads Parker to The Brethren, a familial organization looking to keep its existence secret.

The Brethren also makes this the third book, out of the last four, in which a small, tightly-knit community-type band of sociopaths and psychotics are the central antagonists, following the far more dangerous members of Prosperity, ME from The Wolf In Winter and last year's cultish members of The Cut featured in a A Time of Torment. While there are some cool supernatural aspects behind The Brethren and the psychic visions the females of this line possess, the group are fairly weak villains taken as a whole.

On a narrative front, the story itself is a bit too complicated than is necessary, bulkier than it should be, and more than a smidge unsatisfying in its resolution. Connolly loads in a handful of secondary and tertiary characters, including a whole other subplot about the son of a deceased mob boss looking to make inroads into the heroine trade. Ultimately, this latter is a wholly superfluous addition to a narrative that already's stuffed with questionable motives, a series of homicides that may or may not be related either to one another or even the plot as a whole, and everybody's neighbors.

On the bright side, Connolly does inject a few surprising shake-ups, including the death of well-established character, and a final twist that puts an extra shade of gray on all that preceded it. The writing is grand, even if the story it services may not be the best, and the usual Parker series staples are on hand - good camaraderie, wry observations, witty dialogue, and enough subtle threats to make you feel mobbed up until the final page.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.]

FBI agent Ross has asked Charlie Parker to find a missing private investigator. He is very cryptic about what the investigator was doing when he disappeared and doesn't give Charlie much information to start the investigation.

I have to say this was not my favorite book of Connollys. It was well written and answered some questions about one of the characters in the series, but it had a strong supernatural feel. It felt almost like a science fiction book to me and I don't like science fiction. This was a creepy book and Charlie's daughter Sam is scary. I have liked other books by Connolly and hopefully I will enjoy the next one more. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

Once again John Connolly knocks it out of the ballpark. He is a superb writer and Charlie Parker and his cast of misfit friends are awesome. Connolly does an incredible job of intertwining regular life with the evil underworld. This new title will not disappoint- I am looking forward to learning more about his daughter.

Connolly always writes a tremendous book, mysteries with supernatural overtones to them. He takes care with each sentence and each chapter in itself is a short story ready to be treasured. I always take my time reading John Connolly because I want those moments to last.

An enjoyable addition to the Charlie Parker series. It usually takes me a couple of chapters to re-familiarize myself with the reoccurring peripheral characters, but once I do it's always a fun ride. No exception here.