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Irish author and journalist John Connolly created a crime fiction sensation in 1999 with his blood-drenched debut novel Every Dead Thing. The fuss wasn't just about the way he married elements of the gothic horror novel with the conventions of the private investigator novel, but also for his unabashedly literary style.
Less than a decade later, his ninth novel, The Unquiet, seals his reputation as one of the most original crime novelists around.
Not that the Dublin-based author, who tours New Zealand this month, is following its progress up the New York Times bestseller lists. "Fingers crossed it stays there,' says Connolly, then stops himself short with a wry chuckle. "That's a really Irish attitude isn't it - it might not be there next week? I always expect someone to come and take the furniture away.'
Connolly's books now account for 4 million in sales in Europe, Britain and Asia. And despite seaming his novels with more historical and poetic allusions than crime aficionados consider seemly, Connolly continues to confound his critics and his own Irish pessimism by winning more fans with each new book. His eighth novel, a dark fairytale about childhood written for adults, The Book Of Lost Things was even deemed too literary to be stocked by British supermarkets. So it's no surprise that The Unquiet, the sixth book to feature private investigator Charlie Parker, should represent something of a departure from his previous in the series.
"It's a slow, slightly more reflective novel,' concedes Connolly, "and I think it uses violence in a more interesting way, if that doesn't sound too clinical.'
The Unquiet evokes a potent sense of foreboding by following Parker's progress on the relatively mundane case of protecting a woman from a stalker named Merrick. Still mired in grief and guilt over the loss of his own wife and child, Parker feels an unexpected empathy for Merrick, who believes the woman holds the key to finding his missing daughter. Soon he finds himself drawn deep into a decades-old web of lies and deceit surrounding a paedophile ring. Nothing is what it seems in this intricate tale.
Connolly's haunting portrayal of Maine, where almost all his novels are set, evokes the past's continual play upon the present and invites a deeper investigation of the nature of evil. In its unflinching examination of the way the downtrodden and abused are treated inside the American justice system, it is for Connolly, "a political book with a small p.
"If I have one fear of the United States it is the fear of what passes for its justice system,' he says, going on to paraphrase Churchill's words, "You judge a society by the way its treats those who are most vulnerable.
"The really curious thing about it,' he adds, "is that the societies that America would see itself as almost diametrically opposed to in every way - Islamic-based societies and probably the Chinese as well - are the ones its justice system bears most resemblance to. It's the same kind of eye-for-an-eye justice system and I find it quite terrifying.'
Connolly's ambivalence about the US is why, despite setting his novels in Maine, he chooses to live in Dublin. He first travelled to the US in his 20s, drawn by a passion for American crime fiction and the economic realities of Ireland at that time. Even now he acknowledges a debt to the crime fiction of Ross McDonald and James Lee Burke but is also very much influenced by Jacobean revenge tragedy.
"Then too,' he adds, "the historical elements have become more and more important.'
Historical details, not to mention long-forgotten details about Maine, pervade his novels. Indeed there is something profoundly Catholic about Connolly, both in his eclecticism and in his penchant for exploring the grand themes of good and evil, redemption, reparation and salvation. "I'm a really bad Catholic, the kind that Pope Benedict would probably like to shuttle off out of the church entirely, but I can't shake off that upbringing. And crime writing is a natural fit for the discussion of good and evil.'
He took four years to pen his first Charlie Parker novel, Every Dead Thing, while working as a journalist for the Irish Times, but he never questioned his genre.
"It just seemed to me that whatever subjects I wanted to explore could be explored within the framework of a crime novel. That's changed as things have gone on. I realise not every story can be told that way, and yet it deals with all of these big themes.
"One of the intriguing things about crime fiction is that there has always been this element of redemption running though it. So it seems a natural thing for me take that extra step forward and introduce that element of spirituality to it, not necessarily religion, which is a very different matter.'
For Connolly, Charlie Parker is a way of looking at the world. But as he's proved in the past, he's not afraid to look at it through a different lens or stretch the boundaries of genre. Already at work on a new "slightly lighter' novel featuring Parker's enigmatic gay offsiders, Louis and Angel, Connelly declares that he writes to communicate.
"If someone said you could write all you want, but no one is every going to read it, I'm not sure I would get the same satisfaction.
"The mark of a good book is that it changes a person, that it alters the way a person looks at the world. And if even one of my books could do that,' he adds, "then that's something you can sleep well on.'
- Detours, HoS
