Settings & Atmosphere - Fiction, Thrillers, Women Detectives - Fiction, Crime Fiction, Police Stories

Bad Men

Name: Bad Men
Author: John Connolly
ISBN: 9781451668803

by John Connolly

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Overview

"In 1693, the settlers on the small Maine island of Sanctuary were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered. Since then, the island has known three hundred years of peace. Until now." "A group of men are descending on Sanctuary, their purpose to hunt down and kill the wife of their leader and retrieve the money that she stole from him. All that stands in their way are a young rookie officer, Sharon Macy, and Melancholy Joe Dupree, the island's strange, troubled policeman." "Joe Dupree is no ordinary policeman. He is the guardian of the island's secrets, the repository of its memories. He knows that Sanctuary has been steeped in blood once; it will tolerate the shedding of innocent blood no longer. Now a band of killers is set to desecrate Sanctuary and unleash the fury of its ghosts upon themselves and all who stand by them." On Sanctuary, evil is about to meet its match.

About the Author, John Connolly

John Connolly is the author of Every Dead Thing, Dark Hollow, The Killing Kind, The White Road, Bad Men, Nocturnes, and The Black Angel. He is a regular contributor to The Irish Times and lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnolly.co.uk.

Biography

John Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods department store in London. He studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper, to which he continues to contribute.

His first novel, Every Dead Thing, was published in 1999, and introduced the character of Charlie Parker, a former policeman hunting the killer of his wife and daughter. Dark Hollow followed in 2000. The third Parker novel, The Killing Kind, was published in 2001, with The White Road following in 2002. In 2003, John published his fifth novel - and first stand-alone book - Bad Men. In 2004, Nocturnes, a collection of novellas and short stories, was added to the list, and 2005 marked the publication of the fifth Charlie Parker novel, The Black Angel.

John Connolly is based in Dublin but divides his time between his native city and the United States, where each of his novels has been set.

Author biography courtesy of Atria Books.

Good To Know

Some fun and fascinating facts gleaned from our interview with Connolly:

"I once worked as a debt collector, although I didn't know it at the time. I was just delivering the letters for a courier company, and only discovered they were final notices when a little man chased me out of his sawmill with an ax."

"I did my graduate thesis on the first closure of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, during the course of which I a) was involved in a car crash on the Gaza Strip, which provided the residents with their entertainment for the day; b) was imprisoned briefly by Egyptian immigration officials, an experience I can heartily advise everyone to avoid; and c) discovered that I was a worse photographer than a writer, as none of my pictures came out."

"While interviewing my idol, James Lee Burke, for The Irish Times, I managed to get lost in the Rattlesnake Wilderness while out walking with Burke. His dogs found me. Eventually."

"I can cook a pretty good Cajun meal. I know a bit about wine, but only South African wine." "I love going to the movies, but think cell phones have made it a less enjoyable experience than before. In fact, I think cell phones have made life that little bit less bearable, and I can't imagine how awful it will be when people can use them on aeroplanes. In the last couple of books I've written, people have died terrible deaths because of their fascination with cell phones. I always feel a little calmer after I've killed someone in print."

"Rather embarrassingly, the only pseudonym I've used is a woman's name. Earlier this year, one of the editors at Hodder Ireland, the Irish arm of my U.K. publisher, announced that she was putting together a book of stories, entitled Moments, for tsunami relief, with all of the contributions to be written by female writers. She asked if I might be interested in submitting a story under a pseudonym, just to see if anyone would spot the interloper. I agreed to try, although admittedly there was alcohol taken at the time and had she asked me to swim naked down the Amazon with ‘Pirahna Food' written on my back I would probably have agreed to that as well. The story was called ‘The Cycle' and appeared under the pseudonym ‘Laura Froom' in the book, which was the name of the vampire in one of the short stories in my Nocturnes collection. So there: my secret shame has been revealed."

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

The long-dead, gray-skinned wraiths Connolly conjures up in this thriller with a supernatural twist are lighthearted sprites compared to the grotesque humans who maim, rape and kill their way through the gore-clotted story of horror and revenge. Connolly's usual protagonist, Charlie "Bird" Parker (The White Road; Dark Hollow; Every Dead Thing), makes only a brief appearance here, for which he should give heartfelt thanks. Off the coast of Maine, Dutch Island, known to the old-timers as Sanctuary, is cursed by the spirits of those who died in a savage slaughter there in the year 1693. In the present day, imprisoned murderer Edward Moloch dreams of an ancient land where he is a hunter bent on the massacre of his wife and the inhabitants of a small village. Moloch, the worst of the bad men of the title, escapes from prison and leaves a trail of mutilated victims behind as he searches for the wife who several years earlier betrayed him to police to escape his brutality. On Dutch Island, longtime native Joe Dupree, known as Melancholy Joe, is the oversize (7' 2" and 360 pounds) but gentle chief of police. He's developed a fondness for beautiful newcomer Marianne Elliott, and the feeling is mutual. Unfortunately, Marianne is Moloch's ex-wife and Moloch's on his way, leading a small gang of other very bad men. It's a terrifying story, the action brutal, grotesque and unrelentingly violent. Horrified readers will turn the last blood-soaked page wondering if they would have begun the first had they known what was coming. Think Thomas Harris by way of Stephen King: haunting, compelling, but not for the faint of heart. Agent, Darley Anderson. (Mar.) Forecast: Connolly lives in Ireland, but travels frequently in America to research his locations. His earlier novels have done well and built a nice base of fans with strong stomachs who like their thrillers as cold and dark as the grave. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

After his fourth Charlie Parker private investigator entry, The White Road (2003), the Irish Connolly offers a supernatural chiller to brighten his dark-veined Americana. Connolly writes like a poet, or perhaps like the murky Faulkner of Absalom, Absalom!, stretching scenes out with an unbearable load of neurological and psychic cloudwrack. He opens strongly, though, with a dream three centuries past on Sanctuary Island off the coast of Maine. The dreamer: the vengeful Moloch, a murderer/bank robber/extortionist now in prison, who recalls the slaughter, in 1693, of Casco Bay islanders by a villainous group seemingly led by Moloch himself. Later, settlers on the upthrust now called Dutch Island have had three hundred years of peace. But then Moloch escapes jail and, along with some ghastly mates, Willard, Dexter, Shepherd and Scarfe, heads toward Dutch Island to rain blood down on Marianne Elliot, his battered wife, who hides on Dutch with little son Danny and Moloch's money and gun. Protecting Marianne looms the seven foot two giant Melancholy Joe Dupree, Dutch's police officer. Weird stuff on the island foretells Moloch's approach: teenaged lovers Wayne Cady and Sylvie Lauter die while out joyriding, the girl's last words being about dead people and the dancing lights surrounding them. Bonnie Claeson's son Richie, an adult with the mind of an eight-year-old (gee, like Isaac Snopes and Benjy the idiot), wanders about the island and also sees lights in the forest. Soon, Connolly has drawn well over a dozen characters, including little Danny's buddy, the inept old painter "Jack" Giacometti, and Karen Meyers, and Bill and Patricia Gaddis, so that Moloch's baddies will have someone to beheador impale or crunch while Moloch lives out his dream of revenge and slaughter. The phone lines are down, and a big January snowstorm should hit tonight. A stylish darkness sucks you under. Agent: Darley Anderson