Review: 'The Instruments of Darkness'

The Instruments of Darkness
By John Connolly
Thriller
Atria Books
May 2024

Investigator Charlie Parker is drawn into the defense of a young mother accused of killing her two-year-old son. The only evidence against her is a bloody child's blanket found in her car by her husband, who wasn't home when the child disappeared. She says she fell asleep after drinking some wine and awoke to find the child had been abducted.

The public is definitely on the now-estranged husband's side in John Connolly's The Instruments of Darkness. But Parker never was one to accept conventional wisdom. Especially after meeting the mother. Colleen Clark appears to be a fragile soul, trying to see the good in her husband, Stephen, even after he cheated on her. She blames herself for Henry's disappearance, even though she knows she did not harm him.

Parker isn't the only one who wonders what is really going on. A woman fights being drawn into the case, but she hears Henry's cries. Sabine Drew solved a famous murder years ago when she heard the call of a disappeared child. She became famous, then infamous as another case turned out far differently.

Sabine seeks out Parker, who isn't delighted. He knows Colleen Clark's attorney, the iconoclastic Moxie Castin, would not be pleased either. But he hears the disgraced medium out. Because if there is one thing Parker knows, it's that sometimes the dead can talk. After all, he still sees and hears from his long-deceased daughter.

Connolly is the undisputed master at combining paranormal, or horror, storylines that recall old Irish folktales with noir detective storytelling. On the noir side, another of Moxie's crew, Mattia Reggio, wants respect. He's old-school organized crime who retired after serving time and kept quiet. He knows he doesn't have Parker's respect, and that bothers him. When he hears of a possible lead in the Clark case, he goes off on his own.

Meanwhile, old Parker nemeses Antonie Pinette and Bobby Ocean are causing trouble. When Colleen Clark's home is hit by vandals, it leads back to them. Which does not make either one of them happy. They have more important crimes to commit. Those include needing land up in the woods. Land that neighbors the reclusive Michaud family, a brother and two sisters whose property has an abandoned house, built from an old Sears Kit No. 174. There is something very creepy about that house. And something very chilling about the way the Michauds are determined to protect their property.

The myriad threads are drawn together as the novel reaches an incendiary conclusion. Connolly again makes it all make sense, even the parts that are like old tales told when sleep will not come. In the Charlie Parker novels, the evildoers are both corporeal and otherworldly.

Connolly is a gifted storyteller. What Parker sees and feels, and the events that happen within his circle, are fascinating. The Instruments of Darkness delivers a powerful tale of good and evil, and people trying their best.