Unbeknownst to him, however, these clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined. This would make a great Halloween-time read, sorry I saved it for after the holiday, but there's always next year. The Sisters Strange is the longer of the two, and begins with the seemingly simple murder of a coin collector. Also, I feel slightly rewarded for holding out on reading the original publication as I knew it would eventually find its way into a future book or collection; I just didn’t expect it to be so soon and also to be expanded.

And in The Furies Parker finds himself fighting to protect two more women as the city of Portland shuts down in the face of a global pandemic, but it may be that his clients are more capable of taking care of themselves than anyone could have imagined . It's nice to see the outside world (COVID-19) intruding on this book, so we know this is taking place in "our world".I felt like the last few books lost the magic of the earlier Charlie Parker series, but this one (two stories in one book) brings it all back. The first is "The Sisters Strange," which Connolly originally published during the pandemic day by day, but which has been revised and nearly doubled in length, and tells the story of a pair of sisters who are involved with the same very dangerous man, and how the consequences of his actions are coming home to roost; the titular second novella takes place in the opening days of the pandemic, and deals with a local rats nest and two women both in need of protection. The fact that Parker is a former cop and the often-introspective narrative coupled with the wry sense of humor reminds this reviewer of Block’s Matt Scudder, although Parker is an entirely different character and there’s no connection between them. Good strong female characters, who probably don't need Parker as much as they think they do, and all the usual suspects are present and doing what they do best.

And so he does and gets involved with a coin collecting group of nasties, sickos, strangies and worse. In The Sisters Strange , criminal Raum Buker arrives in Portland, only for a shocking act of theft to threaten not only his own existence but those of his former lovers—the enigmatic sisters Strange. The Furies by John Connolly is actually two novellas connected by theme and a somewhat disreputable hotel. I love Charlie Parker, I love Louis and Angel, I even love Tony and Paulie Fulci (how could you not? Trouble is, this dangerous man not only has a relationship with the woman in question but with her sister as well.

Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Books to Die For is available in the UK as of August 2012, and will be available in the US in October 2012. A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated author Erich Ackerman gives Maurice an opportunity. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.