The Killing Kind - John Connolly

It's been a few years since the events of Dark Hollow and Charlie Parker has been keeping his investigations to White Collar Crime. Now that he and Rachael are in a good place he wants to keep it that way by staying away from the violent crime. Then John Mercier asks him to investigate the death of Gracie, a girl Parker was once close to. He wants to say no but feels he owes it to her somehow. Her death is linked to a private religious sect which disappeared years ago but he's getting nowhere into his investigations. Already he has Pudd, a fairly scary, red headed man, trying to convince him to keep his nose out. A man that even the mafia are terrified of and have reason to be.

I said I wanted light reads this week. Well, it was light but thank you John Connnolly. I now have a new phobia. In the past I was the one to move spiders when they appeared because everyone else is scared of them. Well no more thanks to this book. The first part alone was enough to put me off them for life. The rest of the book just confirmed it. If you have a spider phobia read with caution.

It's a little different from the other books. In the first two we learn who's behind it all as Parker does. With this one though we are ahead of him and it just adds to the suspense. We get to read excerpts of Gracie's thesis through out the book which always puts the reader that one step ahead. Honestly at one point I thought I was going to shout at the book trying to pass on that information to Parker.

I liked the developing relationship between Parker and Rachael although it felt like I was missing something a little. In the last book she was keeping away from Parker after the events of book one. Now their relationship has developed and he's the one stopping it from going that step further. Louis and Angel also made an appearance and I get the impression this will be the case in all the books. Actually I hope it will be. They add to that touch of humour although Parker can be funny on his own. For two characters at odds with the law I have grown to be quite fond of them.

I only have one tiny wee problem with the book and it really is small. Not enough to stop me from enjoying the book but it did niggle. The character Gracie was meant to once have a relationship with Parker. Just a summer fling but I got a feeling it happened during their college years. However, as the book went on the younger Gracie seemed to get. She was studying her PHD (which doesn't really give an indication of age) and her friends seemed to be of college age. It could be just my perception of them but I got the feeling that Parker saw them as just young girls which didn't really fit with the story of how Gracie and himself knew each other.

Otherwise a great instalment in the Parker books. This is definitely one of my favourite series. Connolly definitely has the power to describe horror. Seriously, watch out for those spiders!