King & Connolly: Passing On The Road

I’ve been reading Stephen King since he published his short story collection Night Shift way back in 1978. That book led me to devouring his previous novels in quick succession – Carrie(1974), ‘Salem’s Lot (1975) and later The Shining (1977) (well in the case of The Shining maybe not devour since I never finished it*), and everything he published since then.

I discovered John Connolly and his main character, Charlie Parker, when I took The Wrath of Angels on holiday with me in 2012. It was the 11^th novel in the Parker series, but the synopsis on the back assured me it wasn’t necessary to have read the previous 10 to enjoy this book and it didn’t lie. I began to read the others in the series from the beginning as soon as I returned home. As with King I’ve read every Parker novel since and the current one is number 22.

Therefore it’s safe to say King and Connolly have been two of my favourite authors for many years. Marian and I both eagerly await their latest releases and discuss the books cryptically as we read them, dying to discuss them but not wanting to drop any spoilers until we’ve both finished.

I think I enjoy they’re writing for very different reasons.

When I started to read King I know it was because horror has always been a staple of my reading diet and frankly, even back in the 70s and 80s, he was the best. His leaning towards bad things happen to good people was and is relatable and who doesn’t want to see themselves reflected in some way by the hero, and occasionally the villain.

However, it was more the clear and uncomplicated descriptions of small town America that really hooked me and reeled me in. It opened up a world that Hollywood and other authors didn’t capture in anything like the same level of realism – ironic in books that were often focused on supernatural entities that don’t actually exist (as far as I know at least).

He introduced me to a kind of life that veered away from the sanitised view of America symbolised by neat suburban houses with picket fences and both – mostly white – parents lovingly steering their 2.4 children through life. King reflected a different America that you somehow just knew was nearer to a lived reality, probably his own. A huge part of the appeal was the fact that these sometimes detailed descriptions were almost always delivered in a conversational tone that drew me in as if I was having a chat with a friend over a coffee and he was sharing the town gossip.

Of course that only made the horror even more terrifying because it was being visited upon ‘real people’ one could actually relate to.

Connolly on the other hand made crime novels appealing despite not being a genre I read much of, not for the insights into American life – even though his too centre on the state of Maine – but for the depth of the prose and the high emotional content. His writing reads like literature and not genre fiction. The vibration of underlying menace he evokes through character interaction is relentless and draws you into absorbing every scene, not just reading it, just in case.

Looking through Charlie Parker’s eyes describes a world that is often greyer than possible and colder than reality. He’s both guardian and punisher, but never a simple predator. And if, as my mother often said, the phrase “show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are” ever held weight, then Parker is a very dangerous man indeed. In fact his two friends, Louis and Angel – a couple that share a gift for violence and a history of being guns for hire – gradually became every bit as central to the plot of each novel as Parker himself. Tragedy (the murder of his first wife and eldest daughter) has shaped him, but not entirely stolen his humanity and, like many private eye characters before him, it has given him a soft spot for the underdog.

For Holly Gibney, King’s recurring character in his sort-of crossover crime novels, the use of the term private eye is a constant irritant, even though that’s exactly what she is. Gibney is quite obviously on the Autistic Spectrum (although King is at pains not to say that) and despite all of the obstacles this can present interacting with people, and the baggage she drags around with her from her childhood, she is both completely believable as a character in the situations she finds herself in, and likeable to boot. Her quirky behaviour and skill with deduction makes her a perfect mashup of Sherlock Holmes, Columbo and Jessica Fletcher.

Crime fiction was a relatively new direction for King when he introduced us to Bill Hodges and his then sidekick Holly Gibney in his novel Mr Mercedes (2014). Holly later went on to take centre stage after the three Bill Hodges novels and in my opinion came into her own in the novel The Outsider (2018). She returns, unusually for King, in If It Bleeds (2020), Holly(2023) and recently Never Flinch (2025). But I can’t help wondering if she shines so much in The Outsider because King is in somewhat more of his own back yard.

When I said passing on the road in the title of this post, I was referring to the two authors destinations when they began to head down the road of recounting the tales of these recurring characters. King’s road is taking Gibney from crime fiction past an undercurrent of the supernatural; while Connolly has stated his intention for Parker is to take him from straight forward crime fiction with the vaguest hint of the supernatural, towards a finale that is firmly standing in the weird and wonderful.

In my opinion they have both well passed the midpoint of those journeys and I’m left unsure of whether it has worked out for them or not.

I can’t help feeling Gibney peaked in The Outsider, where ironically, as I mentioned, the story has both feet planted firmly on the supernatural side of the line and a conclusion that is pure Stephen King. Her place in the following three publications appears to weaken over time, until in Never Flinch it seemed to me she wasn’t needed for most of the novel and was shoe-horned into the hero role.

Equally, Parker has been winding down from novel to novel and Louis and Angel, once some of the most menacing characters I’ve ever read, feel like wild cats who’ve had their teeth filed and their claws extracted. Connolly has explained his commendable need to age Parker (now in his mid-50s) and I suppose the same applies to his pals, but I’m not sure if I, or anyone else, care that much if fictional characters keep pace with the years once they’re true to form and doing the job. Certainly Louis and Angel, like Holly, were very lightly used in Children of Eve to the extent that I’m not sure if they would have been missed much if they didn’t appear.

At this stage I can’t see where Holly can go without her simply showing up because King has admitted his fondness for the character and after 22 novels perhaps it’s time for Parker to move nearer the supernatural, and quickly, if that’s still the author’s intent.

I hasten to add this whole conversation is an observation by a reader who still managed to enjoy both novels, just not as much as previous offerings. Both novels are classic King and Connolly and so well written and enjoyable in their own right. In fact, as Connolly is often at pains to point out, if Children of Eve was your first introduction to Charlie Parker, then this novel might be an even better read than it was for me.

*Despite having tried to read The Shining numerous times I have never made it to the end of the novel. Ironically the same thing happened with the movie adaptation. I honestly don’t know why.