I started this book and realized that it is not a genre that I am interested in reading more of. Thank you for this opportunity- the book seemed like a good one for people who are interested in this type of story.

John Connelly has become a guilty pleasure. This series while being beautifully written contains continue the battle between good and evil.. It is a dark series but yet an enduring one. The supernatural elements are woven in and disbelief easily suspended. Characters are flawed and easily identifyabe.

John Connelly Harlow Parker’s horror detective mysteries have been with us for many years and they keep getting yer with each novel. A Book of Bones lives up to his writing past. Great book.

Still on the trail of the super creepy Mors, as well as the seemingly ageless Quayle, Charlie Parker and John Connolly never seem to give us a break!

Quayle is still trying to put together the Fractured Atlas, and Parker is still trying to prevent it. In this volume, Parker, with his pals Angel and Louis, head off to London along with a book expert to try to figure out where Quayle will strike next. We have creepy churches, stained glass windows, (or what appear to be windows), the Green Man, some moors and so much more. We also have appearances from Charlie's daughters, both alive and dead.

This was a long book and it could have been 500 pages longer and it still wouldn't bother me. I never, ever get bored with Connolly's prose or Charlie's thoughts. At this point in the series, I'm expecting things to wrap up, while at the same time, dreading it. I'm hoping that perhaps the series will continue with Charlie's offspring? This is all speculation on my part, but any time now, I'm expecting one or more of these fictional characters I love to die. I'm not sure if my heart can take it, because I've been friends with them for so long.

I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series, because I can't imagine my life without looking forward to the next Charlie Parker book!

My highest recommendation!

*I received an e-ARC of this book through Atria/Emily Bestler Books via NetGalley, but I was approved so late, (I didn't think I'd get approved at all at that point), I bought the hardcover!
Either way, this is my honest opinion. READ THE BOOK!*
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“’Do you mind if I ask what it is you do?’
“The correct reply should have been ‘yes’ for a second time, but he didn’t want to appear rude. It would make her feel bad, and he wouldn’t feel much better.
“’I hunt,’ said Parker. He was surprised to hear the words emerge, as though spoken by another in his stead.
“’Oh.’ Her disapproval was obvious.
“’But not animals,’ he added, as the voice decided to make the situation yet more complicated.
“’Oh,’ she said again.
“He could almost hear the cogs turning.
“’So, you hunt…people?’
“’Sometimes.’
“The wheels came down, and the plane hit the ground with a jolt that caused someone at the back to yelp in the manner of a wounded dog.
“’Like a bounty hunter?’ asked the woman.
“’Like a bounty hunter.’
“’So that’s what you are?’
“’No.’
“’Oh,’ she said for the third time.”

I love Charlie Parker books, and it’s unusual for me to miss a pub date, which I did and I’m sorry. I was distracted and curious about another horror novel that came out at the same time, which was my mistake because that one wasn’t as good as this one. My thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the galley, and I have learned my lesson: life is short. Read Charlie Parker first.

A body has been found in a junkyard in the American Southwest. Could it belong to Parker’s evil nemesis, Rebecca Mors? Sadly, it does not. Mors and her top stooge, Quayle are across the water, and as usual they’re up to no good. Soon Parker and his massively engaging assistants, Angel and Louis will be there too, and yes: they’re hunting. They are being paid to assist the FBI, but since their work takes them overseas, it must be unofficial. This aspect, together with the story’s supernatural elements and Connolly’s expert plotting, pacing, word smithery and character development combine to make a story so spellbinding that I never once found myself questioning whether one aspect or another is credible. Whilst reading it I was engrossed, and what’s more I was cranky when interrupted.

Key elements of our tale are Parker’s daughters—one living, one dead—and a sentient book, a living malign entity that has appeared in previous Parker stories but is at its hellish worst here. The complex plot surrounding it is so full of twists and turns, shifting alliances and above all, dead bodies that at one point Parker reflects that it looks like “the plot of a very violent soap opera.”

The author’s note at the end tells us that his editors tried to get him to edit the book down, and he balked. Whereas there are some historical tidbits that could probably be eliminated or made briefer, I like it the way it is. Why would I want a Connolly book to end sooner? However, the reader will as usual need a hefty vocabulary and greater than average stamina to enjoy this work. It may not be a good choice for those whose mother tongue is not English.

Can you appreciate this story, seventeenth in the series, without reading any of the previous entries? You will find yourself at a distinct disadvantage, but it’s not necessary to go all the way back to #1, either. I began at the fourteenth and have no regrets.

Highly recommended.

My first thought going into A Book of Bones was, “What’s could be better than a new Charlie Parker thriller? A big fat, looooong Charlie Parker thriller.” Following hot on the heels of this thought, came the old adage of being careful what you wish for.

This not to say, though, that A Book of Bones is a bad book. It’s not! It’s really quite good, though, even if John Connolly does revel in a touch too much excess here. There’s an awful lot happening in this seventeenth Charlie Parker thriller, and hoo boy, do I ever mean a lot. Parker is hunting down the killers Atol Quayle and Padilla Mors, and the grimoire — the Fractured Atlas — they possess, a book that, once reconstituted, could destroy the world. Given that Quayle already has much of the Fractured Atlas reassembled and is only missing the final page, the Atlas’s effect on the world is unmistakable, its power already redrawing existence and bleeding hate into the world. Parker’s hunt, meanwhile, takes him from the Mexican border to the Netherlands, and finally to England, giving this book a nice bit of international flair for the first time (I believe) since The Black Angel.

In my review of the prior Parker novel, I wrote “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... 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 Connolly’s world, the resurgence of white supremacy is emboldened and concretized by the Atlas’s completion, as the tome seeks to rewrite the nature of the world into one of hate and violence. Seeking to empower the evil nature of the Atlas even further, Quayle, Mors, and their confederates have left behind a string of butchered women and evidence pointing toward Muslim killers in an effort to instigate race riots across England. It’s interesting to note the ways in which Connolly has incorporated real-world political upheavals into his recent works as the Atlas has traveled back and forth across the Atlantic, and has perhaps (if only fictionally) given rise to poorly coiffed racists to the highest halls of power with Trump and his regime in the US, and Boris Johnson as Prime Minister in the UK. Some conspiracy theorists may blame the use of Large Hadron Collider for altering the world into this nightmarish vision we currently find ourselves in and the rise of the alt-right, but in Connolly’s world, it’s simply the Atlas… and what is written, may not be so easily erased…

Moving Parker and his companions, Angel and Louis, to the UK also gives the Irish author the opportunity to craft a larger story built off an enormous amount of rich, blood-soaked history. After having set so much of his work in Maine and its surrounding locales, Connolly is finally able to dig deep into England’s past, and he does so with a largess of self-indulgence, leaving nary a stone unturned. Those who may like an enormous amount of English history alongside their brutal pot-boiler occult mysteries should find this to be supremely edifying. A Book of Bones is a veritable treatise on English churches and moors, and just as nearly lush in characters, each of whom have their own plots and subplots and associates, who also have their own machinations in the larger story, not to mention the cyclical nature of time and the historical figures and their relations to the Atlas that fit into the plot, going back a few hundred years.

As I said already, there is a lot happening in this book, and at times A Book of Bones feels every bit of its nearly-700 pages. It’s a massive story, concluding much (but not all) of the story arc that began all the way back to 2012’s The Wolf in Winter beyond merely continuing the story that we left off with in The Woman in the Woods, and even reaches back to Parker’s earliest adventures, like Every Dead Thing (book 1!) and The Killing Kind. To say that this seventeenth entry in the Charlie Parker series is not for the uninitiated is a massive understatement! But I also couldn’t help but wonder if everything in this book was wholly necessary. There are entire sections and subplot that likely could have been cut out whole-cloth with little impact to the overarching narrative, and the book does feel a touch too self-indulgent for its own good. Thank the Old Gods Connolly is a hell of a good writer and, having been reading him for twenty years now, he’s more than earned my trust and loyalty to keep those pages turning.

I feel little guilt at forgiving Connolly some of his excesses here, and the payoff in the book’s climax is an incredible salve for some of the minor irritants that cropped up along the way. Connolly pulls in some terrific cosmic horrors and supremely wicked imagery in his final chapters as he concludes this chapter in Parker’s life, twenty years on. And while it does wrap up some elements of past stories, there’s enough hints here to show there’s plenty more fodder for future thrillers. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind another twenty year’s worth of Charlie Parker books if Connolly is willing, but in any case I certainly look forward to seeing what comes next in his honeycomb world.

A continuing serial that is better for having read previous books. Charlie Parker's world is not for the faint of heart. His actions, and those of his like, are not always explained by what we see. Readers who have followed him for years will find themselves satisfied with this ending. A thoroughly engrossing book that grabs you when the first body is found and keeps you reading until the bitter end.

As the seventeenth in the series, this is really a valentine to devoted readers. If there isn’t as much of protagonist Charlie Parker as in previous books, he nonetheless is present and accounted for. Much of this lengthy book makes more sense if an earlier episode has been read. Sadly, I had not done so. But author John Connolly weaves a tight and often taut tale, certainly not easily forgotten. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Reading John Connolly is not for the faint of heart. His novels are metaphysical and tales of the fight between good and evil. Charlie Parker, Louis and Angel depict those who are good who, because of circumstances have done evil things and are now attempting to atone. The novels always contain stories within stories. The plots are never simple, nor are the solutions. They are, however, some of the best plotted, written and developed novels of the genre. Thanks to Net Galley and Atria for an ARC for an honest review.

Up front and personal opinion: This is a tough book to read - even for series fans like me. First, it's long (just shy of 700 pages); second, it draws from past books so heavily that, unless you've read and remembered all those that preceded it, you're likely to be at least a little bit lost. Although this one picks up on loose ends from 2018's series entry "The Woman in the Woods" (which, fortunately, I've read) and private detective Charlie Parker's search for a very nasty character named Quayle and potentially even nastier female partner Pallida Mors, it extends backward to other books which, unfortunately, I have not.

To be sure, I had trouble following the story early on, actually considering calling it quits at a couple of points. But honestly, great writing won out; the author is so skillful that even if I didn't always "get" where some of the extensive historical background came from, I was able to enjoy the story in the moment even if many of those moments took place a very long time in the past. The series does touch heavily on otherworldly things; Charlie himself has experienced death three times, always (so far) returning to the land of the living but with an even greater understanding of the dark supernatural that exists to threaten the hearts of man. And therein lies another issue for me: for the most part, Charlie's presence here is notable by his absence. Other familiar characters like his close friends Louis and Angel play major roles, but it's Charlie who most fascinates me - and I just didn't get enough of him here.

Still, the intricacy of the story here is nothing short of amazing - much as I always say after finishing a Stephen King novel, I simply cannot imagine a mind capable of concocting such complex and intriguing plots. As this one begins, Parker is continuing his quest for Quayle, who in turn is questing for pages that are missing from an ancient "atlas" that allegedly has supernatural powers; it can, for instance, alter itself at will. Bringing all the pages together, it seems, could alter the course of history - and definitely not the the better.

Murders also are the order of the day, most related to locations of ancient religious cults. Figuring out if, and how, they all tie together won't be an easy task, but failure to do so could condemn the world to unimaginable evil. Needless to say, I'm not about to explain more other than it's a wild ride to the finish. Many thanks once again to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review it.

First published in the UK in 2019; published by Atria/Emily Bestler Books on October 15, 2019

A Book of Bones brings an end to the story arc that has developed over the last five or six Charlie Parker novels. The arc involves the efforts of a long-lived man named Quayle and his freakish female friend named Mons to assemble a book called The Fractured Atlas, whose parts have been woven into other books and scattered across Europe and America. When Quayle finishes his reassembly of The Fractured Atlas, a demonic universe of old gods will rip up the fabric of the universe we know, bringing everything to an end.

In A Book of Bones, a fellow named Holmby kills Romana Moon and leaves her body in the moors of Northumbria. The crime troubles the police, but they are even more troubled by what he left inside her body. The killing took place at a site once used by Familists as a place of worship. The Familists were a religious sect that believed all things are ruled by nature rather than God. They have played a key role in the story arc and one of the few remaining Familists assures that Romana is only the first in a series of victims whose deaths will help fracture the universe.

I would find an apocryphal plot of this sort a bit eye-rolling in the hands of most writers, but John Connolly isn’t most writers. He almost had me believing in lost gods and evil beings trapped in church windows. Connolly has a knack for the creepy, but he also has a gift for characterization. Parker is a complex, tormented man whose heroism isn’t based on muscles or skill with a gun but on a steadfast belief that standing up to evil is the right thing to do. In contrast to the parade of tough guys who populate thrillers, Parker is surprisingly gentle and humane. Even his stone-cold killer friend Louis and his burglar friend Angel (who are partnered in a touching relationship) display unusual sidekick depth for the thriller genre.

I’m glad to see the story arc conclude because the supernatural really isn’t what I look for in thrillers. I nevertheless recommend the entire series without reservation because Connolly is one of the best prose stylists in thrillerdom. There is quite a bit of prose in A Book of Bones (it weighs in at nearly 700 pages) but the story is never padded, the plot never drags, and there is never a confusion of characters. I credit that to Connolly’s craftsmanship as a storyteller. Connolly apparently plans to return Parker to his detective roots in the next book, without making the supernatural a key plot element. That’s fine with me, but anything Connolly does is fine with me. He’s just a joy to read.

RECOMMENDED

Book of Bones by John Connolly is the latest in the Charlie Parker PI/supernatural/horror series.

I was a little disappointed in this one. It skips all over the place from Parker and his allies to the villains to new sets of characters to historical inserts. The writing is excellent as always, but the frequent breaks and historical insertions (while interesting) gives an uneven pace to a long book.

There is a great deal of violence in Connolly's good vs evil conflict. The sinister, macabre elements are so frequent that they actually become less effective. When a book is over 700 pages, maintaining suspense and dread is difficult. Gruesome can only go so far.

Problems: too little of Parker, Angel, and Louis (Bob does a little better), too many interruptions that fracture the pace.

spoiler: At any rate, this ends the Familists, Quayle, Pallida Mors narrative arc, but the Backers are still in play.

Now, where will Connolly go next? In spite of my disappointment in A Book of Bones, I wouldn't miss a Charlie Parker book and am eagerly anticipating the next one.

NetGalley/Atria Books
Horror. Oct. 15, 2019. Print length: 720 pages.

I just couldn't get into this one. Other reviewers say it could be a standalone, but it's just a bit too confusing (and a bit too fantastical) for me. I'm not sure if one of the characters appeared in other books and I would do well to get a bit more back story about him. I also am not sure what i'm supposed to believe about Charlie Parker.

I would have given it more of a shot, but at 700+ pages, it's just a bit too long for me to not enjoy it that much.

That being said, I think the writing is great and I can see why so many people enjoy this series! It's just not for me, personally.

In our bookstore, we love John Connolly and his Charlie Parker series. This latest, the 17th in the series, has Parker going head to head wth some of the creepiest villains this side of Stephen King. Connolly is one of the most underrated, talented authors around.

This book is part of a series and it would help if you had read the previous books. It is a Charlie Parker novel. To me it was a bit confusing, I had a hard time keeping the characters straight. The book also went off into historical facts about the characters which didn’t have anything to do with the story. I lost interest. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of A Book of Bones from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I have not read any other books from this series. Clearly, this novel CANNOT stand alone. I did not finish this book and only made it to 14% before throwing in the towel. Positives: the characters seem well developed and the plot seems interesting enough. HUGE negative: too many LONG detours into unnecessary historical information that I do not care about and that add nothing to the plot, which instead only caused me to lose interest fast. After the third one, I had had enough.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I think the problem is I should have started with one of the earlier Charlie Parker books as all of them have gotten rave reviews. My attention just waned with this one and there were so many characters with backstories that I just got lost and my mind started to wander. I won't give up on Connolly though as the writing is clear and his imagination is off the charts! I will trust his fans and try another one!

So, if you’ve never read any Charlie Parker books, I suggest you do. They’re a wonderfully dark mix of crime and supernatural and you’ll likely finding yourself wanting to binge read the entire series.

That being said, they also work wonderfully as standalones and Book of Bones is no exception.

The read is epic. Within a few pages, I was completely lost in this very dark world. The plot is chilling and I found myself worrying for so many of our characters!

Honestly, it was a perfect read for me. I was only sorry when it was over!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

This novel has 3 seemingly unconnected plots which only the reader knows how and why they connect. My disappointment was simply there was too little of Parker and his cohorts in the story. When they do appear it’s as satisfying as always
Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for allowing me the arc in exchange for an honest review

A Book of Bones is the seventeenth Charlie Parker novel, a direct sequel to last year’s The Woman in the Woods. and brings to a head some ongoing arcs that have been building throughout the past several books (about since The Wolf in Winter in 2014).

Parker is still on the hunt for mysterious lawyer Quayle and his vicious consort Pallida Mors. Parker’s long-time confederate Louis would also like another shot at Mors, literally, after she left him wounded in a shootout. Though he also has his cancer-stricken partner Angel to worry about.

The deadly trio of Parker, Louis, and Angel – a force for good in a world filled with plenty of evil – have been weakened and wounded, but so have those they chase. As the trio track their prey to Europe, Quayle and Mors continue to prey on others. Sacrifices are made at ancient holy sites across the UK. How do the grisly murders link to a long-lost book? And just what infernal carnage is Quayle hoping to wreak?

Connolly delivers another masterful tale for longtime fans. A Book of Bones is a tome at 700 pages but moves quickly and captivates throughout. Perhaps it’s not the best entry point for those brand-new to the series, however, with its sprawling nature, many new characters, and Parker being off-screen more than usual. It may pay to read a couple of the more recent Parker novels to get the full benefit of Connolly’s brilliance.