Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

From its ominous first pages, Connolly's 11th Charlie Parker thriller (after 2011's Every Dead Thing) takes readers on a gruesomely entertaining ride. Marielle Vetters, to honor her late father Harlan's wishes, meets PI Charlie in Portland, Maine, to tell him of Harlan's discovery, during a hunting trip in the woods outside their small town of Falls End, of a crashed plane with $200,000 and a short typewritten list of morally compromised public figures aboard. Charlie's interest is piqued by hearing that the serial killer Brightwell, who murdered the detective's wife and son, also came looking for the wreck. Later, Charlie learns of the existence of an alternate version of the list, apparently of souls belonging to the devil, that includes his name. Efficiently sketched characters, both old (e.g., the psychopathic self-styled avenger, the Collector) and new (e.g., the badly scarred but beautiful Darina Flores), bring to life Connolly's portentous but exciting fusion of the occult and the hard-boiled. Agent: Darley Anderson, Darley Anderson Literary. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

A small plane crashes virtually unnoticed in the vast woods of northern Maine. In the wreckage is a list of names that could tilt the balance in a secret war between two shadowy armies. One army is searching for the fallen angels banished from heaven for rebelling against the Divine. Charlie Parker, Connolly's decent, resolute, deadly Portland PI, is a soldier in the opposing army, and it falls to him to find the wreckage and the list, but the mysterious Maine woods hold a threat to anyone who enters. So, it's Evil versus Good versus an entity indifferent to both. Connolly often stretches the boundaries of the crime novel, but he also tells a ripping-good yarn and creates vividly drawn characters: e.g., a rabbi who battles Evil by acting like a cross between a CIA spymaster and a Mafia don; a child who remembers his own death; and a right-wing radio hatemonger who discovers he's wholly owned by Evil Inc. The plot is almost shambolic, but anyone willing to suspend disbelief is in for a great read.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2010 Booklist

Library Journal
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

The Poe-esque opening line launches another somber, disturbing narrative from Connolly, who writes seamlessly about an array of forces both criminal and super-natural, killings, and torture alongside the plethora of more prosaic human failings that he delineates so compassionately. The novel's focus is a small airplane that crashed in Maine's Great North Woods near the atmospherically named town of Falls End. Here is a zone where magnetic forces are askew, where the lost soul of a child wanders, where an altar to idolatry is constructed. Private eye Charlie Parker in his 12th outing (after The Burning Soul) is trying to locate the plane and retrieve from it a list of names, thereby preventing that list from falling into the wrong hands. VERDICT Though scarred by murder, grief, despair, separation, physical and psychic wounds, loss, and revenge, Parker-whose resilience itself verges on the supernatural--shines in his fundamental decency. Strongly recommended for plot, characterization, authenticity, angels, gay assassination team, horror, humor, and humanity. [See Prepub Alert, 7/15/12.]-Seamus- Scanlon, Ctr. for Worker Education, CUNY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.