Every Dead Thing (1999) is the first Charlie Parker thriller and Connolly's first book. Parker is a former NYPD detective who let the job get to him. He took to drink and neglected his wife and daughter. Then, one night, he staggered home to find his wife and daughter monstrously butchered.
Two years on, having left the force, Parker is completely sober and 100% forcused on capturing the killer. He contacts his old partner and gets an informal gig hunting for a missing woman. This leads him to a philanthropist widow, a local mobster, and the person responsible for a chain of serial murders - but not his serial murders. So Parker moves on to New Orleans and hooks up with FBI contacts and local NOPD in another chain of murders.
The problem, ostensibly, is that Every Dead Thing is actually two novels, one set and solved in New York, the other likewise in New Orleans. Even more problematic, they are in many ways the same novel done twice - mob links, serial killers, Parker allowed more access to police and FBI than would ever be allowed. It is also very long. And yet, for all that, it works. It works very well indeed. The overarching story of Parker's quest links the two main storylines sufficiently to keep us going. The characters, especially Parker, are deeply drawn and engaging. The narrative tone - first person Parker - is pitch perfect. He is never a man in control, always a man in recovery. Side characters, the New York killer couple Angel and Louis, the voodoo momma in deepest Louisiana, even the mobsters and their lead assassins, draw us in. I didn't work out who the killer was in either North or South, and especially not both, which is always a good thing.
There are now twenty Parker novels. I enjoyed Connolly's non-Parker novel He (see review below) so much that I decided to try Parker and now I'm hooked.
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