When I am not working I love nothing more than to dive into a great book by an author I love. I have a lot of books on the go right now but I thought I might share a few thoughts on some I have read recently.

I’d like to start with John Connolly’s book – THE WOLF IN WINTER
The death of a homeless man and the disappearance of his daughter draw the haunted, lethal private investigator Charlie Parker to Prosperous, Maine. Prosperous has always thrived when others have suffered. Its inhabitants are wealthy, its children’s future secure. It shuns outsiders. It guards its own. And at the heart of the Prosperous lie the ruins of an ancient church, transported stone by stone from England centuries earlier by the founders of the town …

Read an excerpt.

This is the latest of John Connolly’s Charlie Parker mystery-horror hybrid novels. For those not familiar with Connolly he is a combination of James Lee Burke and Stephen King.

I usually love his books but this time I was disappointed. The underlying story is a riff on THE WICKER MAN where the old gods have to be satisfied to assure the on-going prosperity of the community. The other big disappointment is that in the second half of the book Parker disappears leaving the stage to be filled by the supporting actors.

That said, the supporting cast in the Parker novels are great and they manage to carry the novel through to a spectacular conclusion. If you haven’t read Connolly yet Wolf in Winter is not a good place to start. There are a lot of threads from earlier novels in it and frankly you would find it too confusing. Do yourself a favour and pick up his earlier books in the series. I guarantee you will be hooked.