Approached by his lawyer Moxie Castin, Charlie Parker is tasked with clearing the name of a mother accused of murdering her child. It isn’t going to be easy. The deck is stacked against her in the form of a bloody blanket found at the scene and an ambitious prosecutor; a combination that should make Parker think twice. With a whole town against her, can Charlie uncover the truth? Will he like what he finds when he does?

I started reading John Connolly’s Charlie Parker series back in 2008. At that point, Connolly was already up to eight books. It took me a year or two to catch up, but I feel like I blinked and now we’re twenty-one books deep. I keep waiting for the series to lose steam or that one day I won’t be as excited to get my hands on a new installment, but that day has yet to come and after finishing The Instruments of Darkness, Connolly proves that there is lots of life left in these characters.

Connolly’s titular detective series has often straddled the line between grounded crime fiction and elements of the supernatural and while Instruments of Darkness is more geared toward the boots-on-the-ground detective work, there is that otherworldly flavor Connolly is known for thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure, but we could be entering the beginning an overarching storyline that could stretch out for several books. I liked the introduction of Sabine Drew, someone I hope Connolly uses again, but could easily be a one-off.

Instruments of Darkness benefits from a short-chapter-strategy where I’d say to myself “okay, one more chapter”, which kept me reading for hours. It all keeps everything moving at a break-neck pace where much like Parker, I needed to know where all this was headed and just who was responsible. Speaking of Parker, at this point, he comes across as deeply genuine and as fully realized a fictional character can be that given the hours I’ve spent with him on the page, it very much feels like sitting and having a beer with a friend, even if he and I aren’t really drinkers. I guess that’s what comes with lengthy series.

The Instruments of Darkness continues what is already a classic series that if you haven’t yet checked out, I’m not sure how much harder I can recommend it. I even named my blog after the first book! While I’m not one who does this myself, outside of The Dirty South (book 18), you could read this as a standalone, which is crazy considering how deep we are into the series. But I mean, read the first twenty.