The Book of Lost Things

In John Connolly's world, the dead co-exist with the living. With unresolved issues, they create fissures in the world of the living, never letting go, hovering in their sub-concious.

It's the weight of the dead that the living carry inside themselves that make Connolly's thrillers so much more potent, his heroes somehow more haunted, seemingly straddling two worlds, belonging to both and yet, not quite fitting in either.

His 5 crime thrillers featuring Maine private eye Charlie "Bird" Parker were exemplary works, seamlessly fusing crime procedural with elements of the supernatural in prose of haunting cadence.

Like Bad Men and Nocturnes, his short story collection, The Book Of Lost Things marks a departure for Connolly from his regular series, but he brings the same dark gifts to this fantasy tale. it's 1945, the advent of World War Two and David, the young boy hero of the tale, like Parker, is haunted by his dead mother's spirit, whose voice he hears calling out to him from the shadows of the sunken garden outside his bedroom, telling him she's alive. And there are other voices. The numerous books in David's room speaks to him "in dusty, rumbling tones".

It's these books David takes refuge in, sulking over the death of his mother and his father's subsequent re-marriage, a union that produced, to his increasing dismay, an unwanted step-brother. And to top it all, he sees visions of a bent, mocking figure, The Crooked Man....

When an aeroplane crashes into the garden, David scrambles through an opening in the sunken half and enters a bizarre, fantasy world. It's a world peopled with dark characters and darker events, ruled by an ailing king, his kingdom beset by a vicious horde of hybrid wolf-men called Loups. David must battle them and other strange creatures while tarrying across a dark foreboding land to the King's castle in search of The Book Of Lost Things, his passport back to his world. And all the while the Crooked Man watches. And waits...

Like its chief antagonists, The Book Of Lost Things is a hybrid. Part fantasy quest, part Wizard Of Oz, part coming of age tale, all given a vicious edge thanks to Connolly's cheeky perversions of popular fairy tales. Snow White is a fat, slovenly shrew waited on by disgruntled, Socialist propaganda spewing dwarves, the Centaur legend is given a twisted Frankenstein-ish treatment and The crooked man is Rumpelstiltskin at his most demented.

Those thinking that the violence quotient will be toned way down given the books fairy tale antecedents and a first quarter that hints at a tale geared towards younger readers may well be in for a shock. The book turns increasingly nasty and notches up a respectable body count replete with beheadings, stabbings and disembowelings which may hurt it's marketability somewhat. It's too intense for younger readers and mature,long time Connolly fans may skip this owing to its fantasy elements while awaiting the next Parker installment.

More's the pity, as The Book Of Lost Things is a rollicking good read, re-affirming the writer as a master story teller. Connolly breaks no new ground, but his lyrical prose makes the road well travelled a journey worth taking again.