A complex mystery featuring private detective Charlie Parker. This was #14 in the series, so I might’ve benefited from reading the previous books first. The writing is intricate and the characters complex. A unique story with a lot going on.

Few if any are better than Connolly at weaving paranormal elements into a crime thriller in a way that fits beautifully and doesn't undercut the crime story. His Charlie Parker series is one of the best in crime writing, and this latter-series arc is deep and satisfying.

was a gripping thriller that took you to every aspect of trying to figure out what was really going on and what was going to happen next! This was such an amazing book and I can’t wait to see what else is released from this author!

This is book 16 in the Charlie Parker series and it's the first one I've read. The characters are well written and the story is top notch. Charlie is invited to Maine to aid the FBI when a woman's body is found in a shallow grave. They are now looking for the child she had just given birth to. Many of the characters were old friends so I'm assuming they appeared in previous books. The pace of the story is fast and the story is easy to follow with several twists to keep you anticipating the next chapter. I received a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

The Woman in the Woods is the 16th (!!!) Charlie Parker mystery by John Connolly. Released June 12th 2018 on Simon & Schuster's Atria imprint, it's a hefty 497 pages and available in hardback, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats.

There are very few authors whose stamina is up to the gargantuan task of maintaining quality in every aspect of writing and presenting stories with continuing characters. I am always worried that the next installment of my favorite series will be the one where the author's commitment flags. I needn't have worried in this case.

Mr. Connolly is in top form. This is a taut, superbly written, perfectly plotted, mystery thriller with a strong paranormal vibe. This is one series which is genre defying. I am not a huge horror fan, and though there are horror elements in this book, it didn't detract in any way from the read or overpower the mystery plot elements.

Each of the stories is self contained and can be read as a standalone, but to get a true sense of the juggernaut that is this series, I recommend reading them at least mostly in order.

This book will appeal to core fans of Mr. Connolly's work and should attract a stable of new ones to the fold.

Five stars. Superlative book and series.

One of my favorite books of the summer, Connolly writes with such superb distinction, each sentence a masterpiece. He needs to get his due as the wonderful story teller he is. I love how each chapter in itself is short story, each chapter building upon the next. Connolly's Portland, Maine detective Charlie Parker faces his most evil villain as he searches for a lost child. Full of eerie suspense and a touch of the supernatural, Connolly is the King. In fact, he's better than King.

Published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on June 12, 2018

Few writers of suspense novels care more about language than John Connolly. He marries eloquent prose to the poetry of the street. He also imbues his characters with extraordinary depth, and imbues the (relatively speaking) good characters with extraordinary humanity. Or maybe he simply gives them ordinary humanity, which seems extraordinary in a time when so many people have forgotten how to care about members of the human race who differ in race or ethnicity or religion or sexuality or politics.

A fellow named Dobey who shelters troubled women in a dismal place called Cadillac, Indiana receives a visit from Quayle, accompanied by a woman who goes by the name Padilla Mors, her real name having been lost to history. Mors is “death’s personification,” as she demonstrates repeatedly during the course of the novel.

Quayle is searching for Karis Lamb, one of the unfortunate women Dobey has assisted, who told Dobey she was running from the devil himself. Meanwhile, Karis (who happens to be dead) is talking to a kid named Daniel Weaver on Daniel’s toy phone. She wants Daniel to join her in the woods. Daniel understandably believes that’s not a good plan, as does Charlie Parker’s dead daughter Jennifer, who hopes to guide him on a safer path.

As readers know from other novels in the series, Quayle is trying to reconstruct something called the Fractured Atlas, which will “reorder the world in its image,” beginning with the return of the Not-Gods. Quayle is at odds with a powerful group of men who support the Buried God in what they perceive to be an upcoming clash with the Not-Gods, because reconstructing the Fractured Atlas is likely to turn the world to fire and ash, which isn’t good for anyone, except possibly the Not-Gods. I’m not sure what any of that means, but it’s pretty spooky.

As that plot unfolds, Parker deals with the aftermath of his buddy Louis’ decision to blow up a pickup truck that was decorated with Confederate flags (in Maine, of all places). Blowing it up might have been an overreaction, but Louis’ lover Angel is facing death and Louis was having a bad day. The scenes in which Louis contemplates and dreads the loss of Angel are deeply moving. They are some of Connolly’s finest work although really, it’s all good. Connolly is incapable of writing a graceless sentence.

I’m generally not a fan of supernatural themes, but Connolly always ties his fiction to the corporeal world — in this book, to abused women, a more tangible horror than ghosts and demons. In a time when (as Parker observes) rage, intolerance, and ignorance are worn as a badge of pride, reading a Charlie Parker novel is a civilizing experience. Evil plagues Parker, not just in supernatural manifestations, but in humans who believe that their skin color or sexual identity or religious affiliations are a mark of moral superiority. A good many Americans agree with Parker’s belief in tolerance and equality, but too many others pollute the nation with their ignorant remarks and vile actions.

I wouldn’t recommend The Woman in the Woods to readers who haven’t read the last few Charlie Parker novels, because they work together as a continuing story. I recommend the series as a whole to fans of exquisite prose who can deal with disturbing themes, because each one is better than the last.

RECOMMENDED

I usually have a rule about reading book series in order. The book blurb for this one sounded interesting enough for me to break my rule. The Woman in the Woods is the 16th book in the Charlie Parker series. While some characters from prior novels pop back up in this one, I was able to follow the story and figure things out enough to really enjoy this book. The plot is complex...the characters gritty....and the suspense almost unbearable. I loved it! I now have to back track and start the Charlie Parker series from the beginning! Some events and discussion of past cases will make much more sense if I re-read this after reading the prior books.

A mummified corpse is discovered in the woods. Charlie Parker is hired to investigate and identify the dead woman. Apparently the woman died soon after giving birth, but the infant's corpse is not present. It turns out the case is much more complicated than an unidentified dead woman. And dangerous.

I loved how all the different story lines going in this book all came together. The characters are amazing and the complex plot was just awesome. This is the first book by John Connolly that I have read -- I will most definitely be reading more. A lot more. Like everything this man has written. Just outstanding -- great writing and a creative, suspenseful plot.

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from Atria Books via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Eerie and strange, the Woman in the Woods made me unsettled enough that I had to question the wisdom of reading this book before going to sleep. John Connolly is known not only for his complicated plots, but his complex character development. In this book, he has done it again!!

What sets these Charlie Parker thrillers apart from many others is the touch of the supernatural. In this latest in the series, a tree falls in the woods in Maine revealing the shallowly-buried remains of a young woman. Buried with her are a placenta and umbilical cord, so it appears she died in childbirth. But did her baby survive? Is it buried elsewhere?

Charlie Parker is asked to investigate by the Jewish lawyer, Moxie Castin. He is intrigued because whoever buried the woman carved a star of David on a nearby tree. A sign of respect?

As Charlie begins following a trail of clues that lead to an underground network of people helping battered women escape their abusers, someone else is getting there before him and leaving dead bodies in their wake.

Are they after the dead woman's child, who would be five years old now? Or is it something else they want, something worth a great deal to these hunters?

Short chapters and dramatic tension make for compulsive reading pleasure! Charlie is a damaged man but still honorable. Some scenes with Moxie are laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the story is set in Maine but Charlie ventures into...gasp!...Indiana!! Stop picking on the Hoosiers, Mr Connolly!

I received an arc from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review. Many thanks!

At this, the 16th novel in the Charlie Parker series, I find myself still blown away by the quality of the writing and the depth of the story. Charlie Parker rocks!

But it's not just him, is it? It's Louis and Angel, a pair of gay henchmen, (but I mean "henchmen" in the <i> best</i> way), whose story has to be counted among the greatest love stories of all time, at least in my humble opinion. Their relationship is complicated and wonderful all at once, as is my love for them both.

It's Charlie's daughters, both alive and dead, and my fears for them and what might happen in the future.

It's Moxie Castin, the lawyer with a heart of gold and a soft spot for the Star of David, which plays such an important role in this story.

I won't rehash the plot, because the synopsis and about 10 million other reviews already do that. I will say that the end of this book left me rattled and somewhat angry. <spoiler>A couple of people still deserve their due and I have no doubt they're going to get it, but it didn't happen here. </spoiler> However, I know that Charlie Parker doesn't fail, (at least he hasn't yet), and I will be there, bright eyed and bushy tailed when it happens. In the meantime? I'll be keeping an eye on those Times of London crossword puzzles.

THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS gets my highest recommendation. Period!

*Thank you to Atria and to NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. This is it.*

Connolly is one of a handful of writers whose names I search when I go to Net Galley. He’s consistently brilliant, and so I am grateful to Atria Books and Net Galley for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

This is number sixteen in the popular Charlie Parker series, which began as detective fiction with mystic overtones reminiscent of James Lee Burke, and in the last volume moved into the horror genre outright. Either way it’s a compelling series. One of my favorite aspects of this series is the author’s incorporation of social justice themes. Here we find a sadistic butcher hot on the trail of the shelter volunteers that assisted Karis Lamb in escaping the father of her child, and a magical book she took with her. Karis died in childbirth and is buried in the woods, and there are nightmarish individuals—human and not—trying to find her child so they can get the book. His adoptive mother and grandfather are determined to protect Daniel at all costs.

“Tell me the special story,” Daniel said. “The story of the woman in the woods.”

Karis’s body is dead, but her spirit is not at rest. She is looking for her boy, and a particularly chilling detail is the repeated use of Daniel’s toy phone to call him from beyond the grave.

At the same time, Angel, one of Parker’s two assistants who is also his close friend, is lying in a hospital bed following cancer treatment, and his partner, Louis, whose impulse control is never tiptop and is now strained to the breaking point, becomes enraged when he sees a vehicle bearing a Confederate flag parked near the hospital, and so he blows up the truck. As events unfold, our supernatural villains and the Backers—sinister characters whose lives hold no joy, and whose fate is eternal damnation—are joined in their pursuit of the Atlas, the child, and now also Parker by some local white supremacists seeking vengeance on behalf of the van’s owner.

As always, Connolly juggles a large number of characters and a complex plot without ever permitting the pace to flag, and he keeps the chapters short and the details distinct so that the reader isn’t lost in the shuffle.

This will be a five star read for most of Connolly’s readers. Rating horror stories is immensely subjective, because some readers may find this book too horrible to be fun, whereas others will appreciate the way Connolly continues to turn up the creepiness and the gore. As for me, I had a rough time getting through the first half. I didn’t want it in my head at bedtime, and the graphic torture scenes prevented me from reading while I was eating. The result is that I had to read much more slowly than I usually would do; there were too many times I just couldn’t face it, and there were other times when I could read a short amount, then had to put it down for awhile. I suspect I am a more sensitive horror reader than most, but there will be some besides me that began reading when this was a detective series, and that may find it too grisly now.

None of this will prevent me from jumping forward when the next in the series comes around.

Highly recommended to those that love excellent fiction, and that can withstand a lot of horror and a lot of gore.

I'm a very big John Connolly fan!! I love this series with Charlie Parker, his one daughter alive, and the other one dead, who are always there to help. His friends and allies Angel and Louis just make me laugh out loud when they give each other what for. Every book is an exciting adventure with good and evil battling. Supernatural events are a lot of what draws me into these stories but also the love of continuing to enjoy the tales of Charlie Parker and his group who you come to know like family. Start with the first of the series ‘Every Dead Thing’ if possible but you don’t have to just read! I promise you won’t find an author like this one. You will not regret it and soon you will become lost in the books of John Connolly.

Moxie Castin gets a lot more than a name when Charley Parker is hired. 16 books, and from what I read there are references and innuendo back to all of them which I have not read. Still Connolly still has the "it" that leaves the good ones so soon after they become successful (aka the GREAT S.K.)

LOVED IT!

Deep in the Maine woods, a tree falls and unearths the remains of a woman, the only mark of her grave a Star of David carved into a nearby tree. Soon, a wave of violence will disrupt the lives of a handful of people as the search for the woman's child ensues, and the book the woman once possessed in the days leading to her demise. Drawn into this is Charlie Parker, a private investigator touched by darkness, and for whom violence surrounds him.

The Woman in the Woods is the 16th entry in John Connolly's Charlie Parker series, and its opening chapters carry with it an unmistakable dread. The threat and promise of death looms large over this series, naturally, but it feels more prominent here, more like a warning. Or, perhaps, more like a preparation. Parker and his associates are growing older, as is the author himself, who recently celebrated his 50th birthday, and who has been writing about Parker for going on 20 years. I can't help but feel like Connolly is beginning to move his pieces closer toward an end game, tightening the narrative threads of particular concepts introduced in previous entries and forcing his characters to reflect on the nature of their demise as a close ally to Parker faces the threat of cancer. Of course, long-time readers will know that not even death can spell the end of a character's story, but it still feels like the noose is tightening around the series and that its finale is soon to be upon us.

As with prior novels, Connolly gives us heartless killers with odd afflictions, detours into the supernatural, and glimpses of an overarching narrative involving the war of good against evil. In The Woman in the Woods, we find evil particularly emboldened. I believe this is the first Parker novel written squarely amidst the turmoil of the Trump presidency, a presidency that has served only to empower white supremacists. Beyond the murderous Quayle and his companion Mors, there is the threat of white supremacy and the burgeoning increase in bigotry and racism as represented by the Stonehursts, the youngest of whom rides around in a truck decorated with Confederate flags. Naturally, Luis takes some issues with this northernmost Confederate idiot, allowing readers to live vicariously in the nitwit's comeuppance. It's interesting to see how the Trump regime has impacted some of my favorite authors and their responses to the creeping nature of this odious moron's hate into their work. In Stephen King's The Outsider, we saw graves desecrated by swastikas, and Nicholas Sansbury Smith's Trackers series has provided a good bit of Neo-Nazi-punching heroics. Sadly, the normalizing of these repugnant attitudes by the right-wing is now common place and hate crimes have been on the rise ever since Trump took office, so it's quite refreshing to see characters like Charlie Parker and Luis taking a stand against this all-too human evil. Their actions and reactions toward the Stonehursts had me smiling rather happily along the way, and I suspect this family of rich racists will be playing a larger role in the books to come.

There are few series that I look forward to with as much anticipation as a new Charlie Parker novel, and The Woman in the Woods delivers on a number of fronts. The characters and dialogue are as sharp as ever, and Connolly infuses the narrative with a sense of creeping dread, one that promises to deliver even more worry and upset in the near future. While I suspect we're finally getting close to the end of Parker's ultimate story, I certainly hope I'm wrong. There's nothing I'd like more than to keep on reading Connolly's series for many, many more years to come, but if the end of near, I believe Parker and company will be going out on a high note, and the end began here, with the discovery of a dead woman lost in the woods.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher, Atria/Emily Bestler Books, via NetGalley.]

I have been a avid fan of John Connolly ever since i read Every Dead Thing. His intrically-plotted, interlocking novels tell two compelling stories - the first is the immediate story of the book you are reading; the second- a story of a man haunted by the past, the death of his family, and the unknown future, all colored by an ‘otherness,’ something beyond our comprehension. He is slowly being led somewhere to accomplish something. We see bits and pieces of the larger story. That Connolly has maintained both stories, he suspense, the fear and hi characters’ growth through so many books is a wondrous achievement. These books are a tour-de-force and extraordinary.

This book was unputdownable. I love this character that John Connolly has created and hope to see much more of him.

Another predictable story... it was ok, maybe a beach read but too many books too little time for me to suggest this as a read... ordinary

Outstanding work from one of my favorite authors.
The narrative is beautifully composed with dark tones that border in the macabre.
The words used are elegant and educated as it is seen through the eyes of an old entity that has been bound to this plane with the sole objective of finding the Fracture Atlas.
In this installment, the author hints of the true nature of one character that is linked to Parker's life.
Death is a main component, as it lingers in almost all the chapters and is always present as a guardian to its own design.

Oh, how I look forward to reading books in this series - this is the 16th, I believe, so I've had lots of practice. Even though my mystery/thriller tastes don't cross the line into the paranormal, I've made an exception for private detective Charlie Parker, who somehow managed to die three times and return to the land of the living. But that experience didn't leave him unscathed; inexplicably, he remains "connected" to that very dark place in which he narrowly escaped making his forever home. He plies his trade just like any other human, but he's acutely aware of the evil that lurks in the hearts of [non]men.

This one begins as Charlie, an FBI consultant, meets with old friend Louis, whose life partner Angel is recovering from surgery to remove a tumor. As they are leaving, Louis - not known for an accepting attitude - spots a truck tricked out in all manner of fancy including a couple of decals Louis considers offensive. One thing leads to another, and let's just say Louis and the truck's owner will never be friends.

Concurrently, a very bad man named Quayle and his even badder girlfriend are on the hunt, looking for a pregnant woman named Karis Lamb. Clearly, they won't stop till they find her - and woe is anyone they run into who can give them any leads (or not). As the story progresses, a storm in Maine topples a tree in the woods, unearthing the remains of a woman who appears to have given birth before she died. Parker is called in to help with the case, but her identity can't be ascertained, there are no clues as to what happened to the infant and Parker has no awareness of Quayle and his quest (much less why he's so determined to find the woman).

Eventually, though, everything begins to come together - meaning that Quayle now knows Parker and Louis may be major roadblocks in his path. Here and there, Parker's dead daughter Jennifer makes an appearance (occasionally speaking to her father as well, since she's tuned into what happened to and what's happening now with the woman in the woods). Needless to say, getting to the end means wading through some gruesome murders; and to get the full enjoyment out of the book, I'll caution readers to keep an open mind about "other-worldly" matters. As with other books in the series, the ending is mostly satisfying, but a few loose ends will, I assume, be picked up in the next installment.

Of course, I'll be waiting; meantime, many thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for allowing me to read an advance copy of this one. Thoroughly enjoyable!