欧宝娱乐

This is my first Connolly novel. I know he is a popular mystery writer鈥攋ust look at his wall of books at Borders鈥攂ut I didn鈥檛 know what to expect. To my surprise I found his writing to be articulate and beautifully detailed. I was also surprised at the intense level of violence. Not shocked, mind you, Chuck Palahniuk is one of my favorite writers, so this has a long way to go before ever reaching 鈥榮hock鈥� level. It was just the sheer bravura of death and destruction that caught me off guard.

I have to give the author credit. He is not afraid to kill characters off. And there are a lot of them. So many, in fact, for the first few dozen chapters you鈥檙e not sure just what the hell is going on. Just when you get to know the small isolated Maine island Sanctuary (with copious details of its deadly history) the story switches to Florida, then the Carolinas, then all over the place and every character has a back story. The author, to a fault, doesn鈥檛 introduce anyone without immediately expounding their history which is usually brutal鈥攅ven if the character is killed in the same chapter. I didn鈥檛 do a body count as I read along, but it was in the dozens. I have to say I got a little annoyed with story after story, death after death.

But he ties it all together and finally, when about two dozen of the main characters finally meet on the creepy island there is a big 鈥榓h-hah鈥� moment and the story kicks into high gear. Connolly is pretty good with the sinister detail as the story turns supernatural. You are waiting for it to happen鈥攁nd when it does, he is at his best. I am not sure if his other novels have the 鈥楧ean Koontz鈥� effect or not but I picked up a couple more at the flea market and am willing to try some others.

If you put up with a lot of extraneous wasted character development the end is worth getting too. Well, isn鈥檛 it always? No, maybe not always.