The Burning Soul

Investigator Charlie Parker is emotionally manipulated by colleague and lawyer Aimee Price into investigating the harassment of Randall Haight, a Pastor’s Bay resident with a dark past. When still an adolescent Haight and another boy killed a young girl in what appeared to be a fumbling, panicked immature sex-crime. They were convicted and now, decades later, Haight lives a quiet life as a taxman, under a legally-given assumed name, his neighbours apparently not knowing the scandal he carries with him. But it appears someone does know. A young girl, Anna Kove has gone missing and despite a local police investigation and growing, wider media coverage, no-one knows what has happened to her. However Haight has started getting photographs related to his past crime and he tells Parker and Price that he is afraid he’ll be blamed for this latest crime or at the very least have his new life destroyed. Parker, still living with the loss of his own wife and child knows the deep-rooted and long-lasting pain a crime can cause and is conflicted by his assignment and the nature of Haight himself. But even Parker has no idea where the scope of his investigation is about to take him and the secrets it will uncover.

My previous exposure to Irish author John Connolly has largely been through frequent but not-acted-upon recommendations from colleagues and the fact that his books are usually found in close proximity to Michael Connelly’s on the shelf. So perhaps it was a little shallow to dive in and pick up his latest work largely on the strength of its eye-catching cover staring out from the shelf, as if it was a spur of the moment album purchase devoid of actual music by which to judge it. Call me shallow.

However, purchase of The Burning Soul, out now in soft/paperback, turns out to be a good choice, enticing flaming-imaged cover or not. This is quality writing, clearly penned by someone who has as much love of the language as they do for the crime genre itself. One can almost imagine Connolly sitting down with a large cognac (or perhaps beer), turning on some operatic overture and starting to write. He writes of small East Coast American towns like a native, despite his residence in Ireland and catches the nuances of character and location. The ebb and style takes a moment to get used to, but once you’ve dived into it, the novel’s flow seems natural and powerful and its cast of characters, dark and compelling.

Though primarily a straight-up, well-crafted and emotionally-taut thriller, there are also elements of the supernatural woven into the story, some metaphorical (the opening chapters talking of the loitering ravens that perch over the surroundings watching matters unfold) and some actual (the perhaps literal haunting of central character Charlie Parker by his dead wife and child). Some of these moments work better than others, the momentary spectral shift in tone is well written but feels as if it’s wandered in from Stephen King’s Bag of Bones, looked menacingly into camera and then shuffled out again. Equally at over four hundred pages, The Burning Soul is not a casual, light read, but one that demands your attention as several diverse plot and geographical threads begin to wind their way together towards an ending you know will not work out well for many concerned.

Definitely a high quality outing for an author with an already impressive reputation and on the basis of this, one I should have sought out much earlier. I shall be doing so at the nearest opportunity.

9/10

John Mosby - Editor

Born at a early age, creative writing and artwork seemed to be in John’s blood from the start Even before leaving school he was a runner up in the classic Jackanory Writing Competition and began...

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