Featured books

Featured Websites

.: Reader Views Kids

Provides book reviews, by kids, for kids

.: Inside Scoop Live

Provides live author interviews for podcast

.: Authors Access

Provides interviews with experts in the publishing industry

.: Midwest Book Review

Provides post-publication reviews

.: Reader Views

Provides book reviews and author publicity

.: LR Communication Design

Provides professional website design and development

.: Blogging Authors

Provides a place where writers and readers meet

.: Review The Book

Provides 5 books reviews on 10 different sites

.: Best Sellers World

Provides book reviews and author features

.: Say What? Savannah Mae

Provides Book Reviews via Book Blog

.: Feathered Quill Book Reviews

Provides book reviews and author features

reviews

The Burning Soul

John Connolly
Atria Books (2011)
ISBN 9781439165270
Reviewed by Enid Grabiner for RebeccasReads (10/11)

Randall Haight has made quite a quiet, reclusive life for himself living as a respected accountant in the small town of Pastor’s Bay, Maine.  Up until now he has been able to bury his past.  When he was a teenager he and a friend murdered a 14 year old girl.  Having served his time as a juvenile, he was released and given a new identity. After years of escaping his past, he is being taunted by someone familiar with him.  Also echoing the past is the disappearance of another young girl, placing Randall as a prime suspect if his secret should get out. 

Private investigator Charlie Parker is enlisted by Randall’s attorney to quietly find out who the blackmailer is.  Tormented by the past murder of his own daughter and the new disappearance of Anna Kore, Charlie finds it difficult to defend a man for whom he has contempt.  A fallen organized mob boss further complicates the case and brings into play old enemies, antagonistic local and federal authorities and the recruitment of recurring allies.

This Charlie Parker novel is a blend of a dark mystery and multi-layered characterization blended into elaborately descriptive backdrops. Lots of twists in the plot keep the reader entertained. As this book is well into a series of thrillers with same protagonist, his recurring buddies and enemies, a new reader often finds himself questioning the back-stories and relationships. There is not enough information presented to fill in the blanks for those unfamiliar with the past books.

The rapid action of "The Burning Soul” is often distracted by long portions of literary descriptive prose.  Despite that negative, the story successfully offers moral conundrums to consider.  How much is objectivity tainted by ghosts from the past?  Can one truly escape his own personal history? As Connolly expresses, “There are some truths so terrible that they shouldn’t be spoken aloud, so appalling that ever to acknowledge them is to risk sacrificing a crucial part of one’s humanity, to exist in a colder, crueler world.”

.: Blog
.: FTC Disclosure