The Wrath of Angels - John Connolly

"In the depths of the Maine woods, the wreckage of an aeroplane is discovered. There are no bodies, and no such plane has ever been reported missing, but men both good and evil have been seeking it for a long, long time. What the wreckage conceals is more important than money: it is power. Hidden in the plane is a list of names, a record of those who have struck a deal with the Devil. Now a battle is about to commence between those who want the list to remain secret and those who believe that it represents a crucial weapon in the struggle against the forces of darkness.

The race to secure the prize draws in private detective Charlie Parker, a man who knows more than most about the nature of the terrible evil that seeks to impose itself on the world, and who fears that his own name may be on the list. It lures others too: a beautiful, scarred woman with a taste for killing; a silent child who remembers his own death; and the serial killer known as the Collector, who sees in the list new lambs for his slaughter.

But as the rival forces descend upon this northern state, the woods prepare to meet them, for the forest depths hide other secrets."

As my first Charlie Parker book its stands well on its own, I only realised it was part of a series after reading.

Its delivered with exceptional poetic skill, but undone somewhat by a cast too large for the length of the story, which dilutes the impact and leaves the book feeling more like a series of vignettes. Parker himself is mostly relegated to bookend chapters and merely picks up crumbs long after the reader has discovered them. Structurally odd and not altogether satisfying by the time we reach the hurried ending, a less than fantastic Connolly novel is still better than most, and this one certainly has its moments, even if they don't ultimately combine to thrill.  

The little side stories where, for me, some of the best bits. Particularly ones concerning Parker's grandfather and his friend, touched by death and scarred by loss.

There’s a lot of humour buried in this dark tale, much of it from Charlie, Louis and Angel who all had me cracking up on multiple occasions. There are a lot of great Louis and Angel moments including some great interactions with Charlie's daughter Sam.

I loved the character of the Collector. Connelly truly explores the human condition and the price of playing God. The grey morality of all the characters was wonderful to explore and a breath of fresh air from the usual goodie toe shoes main character.

The truly terrifying thing is that Connolly seems to understand that goodness is but a twisted, transformed version of that same evil, and that very twisted version of goodness is the most we can hope for on this earth. He portrays the drama of a life where evil is the default, and therefore easily obtained, and goodness is always beset with obstacles, requiring tremendous effort, never achieved with any great satisfaction or perfection, and even that only with the most heroic effort.

One of my favourite quotes was:
‘Is this how evil is done, he asked himself, in small increments, one foot after the next, softly, softly until you've convinced yourself that wrong is right, and right is wrong, because you’re not a bad person and you don’t do bad things?’

The natural setting of the woods is instrumental to the thrust of the plot and Connolly's perfectly rendered descriptions of the beauty but inherent malevolence of the natural world are perfectly realised. Skilfully interweaving folkloric tales into the plot, the woods and their surrounds become like another character in the book and influence greatly the actions of the human characters.

Age Rating I would say 14/15+. Demons, dark atmosphere, off screen death and torture, grey morals, Satanism. Wow sounds like an awful book now that I am writing this out.