What the heck?

I have been a fan of John Connolly's Charlie Parker series from the first unforgettable book. The latest, The Nameless Ones, represents a significant change in my level of engagement with the story. It is a Parker novel that is virtually devoid of Parker. In 80+ chapters, Charlie appears in 3 or 4.

That wouldn't necessarily create a problem because this series is peopled with a great raft of recurring characters, lovable and/or laughable and/or otherwise. Another book revolving around Louis and Angel, for example, might prove a more than adequate addition, but under other circumstances than those we find here.

The bedrock of the Parker series combines viscerally horrific depictions of violent death, an unerring moral code in the struggle against evil, Connolly’s occasional philosophical exegesis, and a more-than-occasional touch of the supernatural--right up my alley. If I were looking for a history of the Balkan Wars, I certainly would have looked elsewhere.

Which is not to say that there is no value in revisiting those conflicts in a modern mystery thriller--of course there could be--but not in the interminably convoluted way that Connolly does it here.

In order to clarify, I specifically noted a few passages. The first is an example of the style in which the bulk of this tale is told.

“If Radovan Vuksan attributed Spiridon’s crossing of Hasanović’s path to bad luck or some strange act of God, Zorya, by contrast, believed it to be part of a deeper pattern of tribulation that included the assassination of Nikola Musulin, with an inception that could be traced back to the murders of De Jaager and his kin.”

Say what?

In contrast, the quote below illustrates the style I expect, and prefer:

“Tony Fulci was not stupid. Of course, there were persons in Portland and farther afield who liked to joke that Tony was dumb as a rock, while his brother was dumb as two rocks, or half a rock, depending on where one stood on the whole dumbness/rock comparison index.”

Or this bit, from one of the other chapters in which Charlie Parker features:

“Tony alighted from the cab of his truck and…arrived at the lot to see [a man] kneeling by Parker’s car, one hand under the front-left wheel well. The man looked up to see Tony Fulci standing above him and reacted swiftly, his left hand leaving the wheel well while his right moved simultaneously toward the inside of his coat. Tony let the tire iron slip from his sleeve to the palm of his right hand before swinging it in a single sharp motion toward the [man’s] head. It caught him just behind the right ear, and Tony heard bone crack...The driver had emerged from his vehicle. In his right hand he held a short-barreled revolver. Tony threw the tire iron, missing the driver’s head by inches. “You fucking asshole,” said the driver in an accent Tony did not recognize, but Tony was by then already charging at him like a rhino in polyester. If Tony was going to die, he intended to make his killer work for the pleasure, except that the ground was slick with rain, and Tony might have had bulk but he did not have speed, not until he’d built up momentum. He needed more distance than he had, but he realized this just too late. Which was when the head of a bear hit the driver full in the side of the skull, followed shortly after by Tony’s considerable weight impacting on his chest from the front, and seconds later by Paulie Fulci’s own bulk connecting with him from the right. The revolver went off, but it was pointed at the sky, and by then the driver had hit the ground with the best part of six hundred pounds of prime Italian-American beef on top of him… the blows began to land, rendering him mercifully unconscious. Figures appeared, but Tony saw them only through a red mist. Paulie, by contrast, didn’t see them at all, so absorbed was he in pummeling what was left of the life from the man with the temerity to have pointed a gun at his brother.”.

I don’t know if it’s obvious, taken out of context, but the Fulcis’ antics are hilarious, and were sorely needed by this point in the story. Perhaps Connolly would consider devoting the next book in the series to the adventures of Tony and Paulie? I’d like that.

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