Bad Men by
John Connolly
pbk out March 04
(Coronet)
at £6.99
When you read John Connolly's previous books you are aware of an element
of the supernatural - another world at the edge of the real one. It is as if there is a grey
mist that drifts disturbingly around the base of your skull, or scarcely perceived out of
the corner of your eye. In Bad Men, Connolly brings the supernatural centre-stage.
At the same time, he also consigns his usual protagonist - Charlie Parker - to the
periphery. The detective appears only obliquely in the novel, and is quite irrelevant to
the storyline.
The story centres on the aftermath of an ancient tragedy on an island off the
coast of Maine in 1693. Victims of a massacre continue to inhabit the spot causing
strange phenomena for the islanders. The local police officer, a giant called
Melancholy Joe Dupree is aware of the history of the island, once called Sanctuary,
and that it has been steeped in blood. The eponymous bad men are a gang of rapists
and murderers gathered together by the psychopathic Edward Moloch in order to help
him track down his fleeing wife and child. They are homing in on Dutch Island, or
Sanctuary, just when a rookie cop called Sharon Macy arrives to assist Joe, and the
incidence of ghostly activity is reaching its peak. Of course, the woman being hunted
is Joe Dupree's new lady. And Edward Moloch is somehow connected by bad dreams
to the events of 1693.
The story is told from a multiplicity of viewpoints, and can be a little
bewildering in the early stages as characters come and go with alarming speed. Many
are dispatched by a bullet in the brain. In fact, throughout the book, I was a little
perturbed by the cool way that, once introduced, innocent bystander after innocent
bystander is chillingly dispatched by the bad men. It almost became too much to
tolerate, even though it was clearly designed to show up their ruthlessness. I wanted
to say to Connolly at one stage - 'OK. You've made your point! You don't have to
kill the pizza delivery boy.' Another niggle was that I also felt I was being given too
much background at times, as though his descriptive prose was like the undergrowth
on the island. Growing wild, and seriously out of hand in some uncanny and
unnatural way.
No matter. The story soon began to pull together, and carried me along at the
usual cracking pace towards its inevitable conclusion, with a few surprises thrown in
along the way. Undertones of familiarity? The isolated island defended by a good
man (and woman) against cold, evil men (and a woman) in foul weather with all the
telephone links down. It doesn't matter. Aren't all stories a variation on a theme?
Connolly writing remains entertaining and stylish, and Bad Men, though something of
a departure, is well worth the read.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
Bad Men by
John Connolly
