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The Lovers |  | Author: John Connolly
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Category: Book
List Price: £17.99
Buy New: £1.85
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Seller: good-4-books
Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 28317
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 034093669X
EAN: 9780340936696
ASIN: 034093669X
Publication Date: July 9, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
In The Lovers, John Connolly’s latest, highly individual entry in his distinguished Charlie Parker series, his doughty private eye’s life is in a downward spiral. The authorities don’t trust him, and he has been deprived of his investigator's license (including his right to bear arms). He’s holding down an undemanding job in a Portland bar. But Charlie is not the kind to stay in the shadows for long: he is about to undertake the most challenging (and potentially destructive) assignment of his life: he has decided to uncover the facts behind his policeman father’s death and – even more importantly -- the killing of a young couple that his father was responsible for. Immersing himself once again in the painful circumstances of his own childhood, he comes across a mystery: an unidentified young man and woman who appear to have been present at many death scenes; and – even harder to accept – they have been seen right back to the days of the suicide of Charlie’s father. This mysterious duo are shadowing Charlie -- will he find out the motivation behind his father’s terrible act before he, too, violently dies? Dublin-born John Connolly is as celebrated in the US as he is in Britain for his perfect assimilation of American idioms in the remarkable series of crime novels featuring Charlie Parker, but it goes without saying that bestselling success requires something more than nailing a US tone of voice. That such as Connolly winners as Every Dead Thing,The Reapers and now, The Lovers, work as well as they do is also down to the fact that he is able to import a striking and stylish use of language into his violent narratives. And there is another element to his work – an audacious move beyond the parameters of normality. The Lovers, like other Connolly books, transports the novels’ battles between good and evil into an almost metaphysical realm. This is always the most controversial component of his books, and inevitably, it’s not to everyone’s taste. But those who love John Connolly know such things are part of the warp and woof of his work, and they move him into a territory that is very much his own. --Barry Forshaw
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
 Two and a half stars - more Stephen King than Michael Connelly February 19, 2010
Johnnybluetime
I confess that after reading this book I am no fan of John Connolly.I read Every Dead Thing, Connolly's first Charlie Parker novel, back in 1999 and really disliked it for it's goulish delight in obsessively describing in minute detail the endless scenes of torture and violence that are my overwhelming memory of the book. I thought 11 years on and after winning many decent reviews for his subsequent work that he had improved after an obviously exploitative start.He has, but like J Trevett before me, when I bought this I had no idea there would be supernatural elements to the plot.I can't say I was impressed when during the course of reading a half decent thriller I slowly became aware that the author did not intend the ghosts and ghouls to be metaphorical but metaphysical.Even so, it's not so obvious that it's immediately off-putting, but after a while I began to lose interest because of that element.So, be warned.
That aside, the basic plot - son, ex-cop and suspended private eye, searches for the truth about his cop-father's suicide, is a decent theme. Connolly's writing has certainly improved, and thankfully he's got over his obsession with the most visceral details, but I find his style is excessively wordy and occasionally grandiose. Clumsy too.Towards the end of the book a character sits Parker down and basically, over the course of two chapters,explains why everything is happening. So - end of mystery. Having said that, if everything didn't revolve around the supernatural element I might have given the book 4 stars. However, that's like saying that, the great white whale apart, I'd have given Moby Dick 4 stars.
If you love the Denzil Washington film, The Fallen, which appears to be where Connolly got his whole big idea from, you might like this.
 Love the Lovers January 5, 2010
K. Floyd (Norfolk, England)
Love it. What we Charlie Parker fans have been waiting for the past two years. Bring on the next one.
Great start then downhill fast. December 1, 2009
J. Trevett (Welsh Valleys)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am new to this author's work and from the "blurb" and the way the item is marketed I thought I was buying an above average private eye/thriller product. The opening chapters were great and I though I was onto a winner! I just cannot explain how disappointed I was when the tale suddenly veered into Stephen King/The Sixth Sense territory. If you're a fan of this genre then no wonder the book has so many five star reviews but if you're looking for a thriller anchored in reality this is not for you! Try MICHAEL Connelly or Jeffery Deaver. As someone once remarked of golf - "it's the ruination of a good walk" - so the intrusion of ghoulies and ghosties ruins this novel. I'm still trying to figure out why something "not of this earth" needs a gun to kill a petite woman??
Bird flying high again October 11, 2009
Literary Lunatic (Scotland)
I'm a big John Connolly fan and was left slightly disappointed by his last one so I approached this with trepidation.
I needn't have worried. This is a complete return to form with all the detective and supernatural elements that you would expect from a John Connolly book and even more interesting because it digs in to Parker's back story rather than the story of the journey we've been on with him.
Angel and Louis don't feature highly in this and I would have thought that I would have missed their presence but the story was intriguing enough without them.
A fabulous, well written, gripping and intriguing book - Dan Brown would do well to read it!
 Connolly returns to form October 10, 2009
Paddurz (Sweden)
With The Lovers, Connolly returns to form. It is not his greatest book, that is still held by his master piece the black angel. This book sits well among the likes of the white road and the killing kind. His previous two books in the Charlie "Bird" Parker series, the Unquiet and the Reapers, were slight let-downs as they weren't quite to his normal form (but still good reads). This books sees Parker returning to the circumstances surrounding the death of his father, where nothing no longer is what it seems and old secrets are starting to leak out as forms in the shadows begins to stir.
I really liked the book and, again, I see myself longing and waiting for the next book in this unmissable series. Connolly is a master of the genre "Maine Noir" and his dark tales about Parker should ot be missed by anyone.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 26
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