Review: The Black Angel by John Connolly

The Black Angel by John Connolly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Black Angel is not an object.

The Black Angel is not a myth.

The Black Angel lives.

A young woman goes missing from the streets of New York. Those who have taken her believe that nobody cares about her, and that no one will come looking for her. They are wrong.

She is 'blood' to the killer Louis, the man who stands at the right hand of private detective Charlie Parker, and Louis will tear apart anyone who stands in the way of his attempts to find her. But as Louis' violent search progresses, Parker comes to realize that the disappearance is part of an older mystery, one that is linked to an ornate church of bones in Eastern Europe, to the slaughter at a French monastery in 1944, and to the quest for a mythical prize that has been sought for centuries by evil men: the Black Angel.

Yet the Black Angel is more than a myth. It is conscious. It dreams. It is alive.

And men are not the only creatures that seek it..

Oh my God, the ending broke my heart. Poor Parker :( This man really deserves a break!

I haven't reviewed any of the books in this series, but I think most people know by now that I love these books (by the fact that I've read 5 of them in such a short time!). The characters are what keeps me reading from book to book, because I want to know what's going to happen to them. Parker is a great main character here, and identifying with him is very easy. His action aren't always what we might call 'morally right' but we can never fault him for any of it. I was worried that his girlfriend Rachel would end up taking the role as the damsel in distress, but that only happens once and for good reason, IMO. She's as strong as any of the other characters, though she is against much of what Parker and his friends, Louis and Angel, do. And that is one of the conflicts in this book.

The mysteries are great, and many of them are very chilling. The writing is superb and so rich with beautiful details.