In 2003, an Iraq museum was ransacked and looted. Valuable artifacts were stolen, among them what would appear to be an old worthless lead box. However, this box was anything but worthless. Its value could only be measured by the fact that it was hidden away, never to be looked upon. And that is just how this box should have remained through eternity. Somehow, a group of American soldiers disenchanted with their government, managed to take possession of these artifacts and smuggle them into Maine through Canada. With promises of sharing the wealth with soldiers wounded in the war, the smugglers engaged the help of other soldiers until eventually greed overcame them. Just as their greed spread, so did an evil that caused the men one-by-one to commit suicide. Or was it suicide?

This is where private detective Charlie Parker comes into the situation. One of the fathers cannot believe his son killed himself out of depression. He knows in his heart that a fellow soldier had something to do with it. He wants answers and hires Parker to investigate. When Parker digs a little too deep for the smugglers' comfort, they treat him to some water torture. That only makes Parker angry enough to call in a couple of his friends who have no conscience when it comes to killing people. Parker wants to protect himself and having backup is the smart thing to do with all the people who are dying.

Someone else is on the smugglers' trail. His name is Herod and he wants the box. He has no compunction about killing either. He plays judge and juror, but believes he would never hurt the innocent; he just gives unreasonable choices. He has a sidekick, someone he believes is his helper but is really his hidden "puppeteer." Only a select few can catch a glimpse of this entity and only in a reflection.

Yet another is involved in the chase. The Collector, someone Charlie Parker is aware of and would prefer never to see, is after the mysterious lead-covered box, as well. When the playing field gets too dangerous, Parker must team up with him to stop the killings.

THE WHISPERERS was my introduction to John Connolly's writing. I found his character, Charlie Parker, as likable as other characters from some of my favorite male authors, Robert B. Parker and H. Terrell Griffin among them. I enjoy stories of male heroes who entertain with a sharp sense of humor, a sense of personal comfort with themselves and their world, and get the bad guy in the end. I quickly checked the front of the book to see a list of other books written by John Connolly and am anxious to read them. I hope you will take the time to read THE WHISPERERS. With its references to the issues that veterans have to deal with when they return from war to the paranormal element, it is a satisfying and refreshing time well-spent between two book covers.

Book Summary

A group of disenchanted former soldiers has begun its own smuggling operation. Anything can be smuggled between Maine and Canada--drugs, cash, and even people. To stop it, Charlie Parker must form an uneasy alliance with a killer he fears more than any other--The Collector.

“‘Oh, little one,’ he whispered, as he gently stroked her cheek, the first time he had touched her in fifteen years. ‘What have they done to you? What have they done to us all?’ ”

In his latest dark and chilling Charlie Parker thriller, New York Times bestselling author John Connolly takes us to the border between Maine and Canada. It is there, in the vast and porous Great North Woods, that a dangerous smuggling operation is taking place, run by a group of disenchanted former soldiers, newly returned from Iraq.

Illicit goods—drugs, cash, weapons, even people—are changing hands. And something else has changed hands. Something ancient and powerful and evil.

The authorities suspect something is amiss, but what they can’t know is that it is infinitely stranger and more terrifying than anyone can imagine. Anyone, that is, except private detective Charlie Parker, who has his own intimate knowledge of the darkness in men’s hearts. As the smugglers begin to die one after another in apparent suicides, Parker is called in to stop the bloodletting. The soldiers’ actions and the objects they have smuggled have attracted the attention of the reclusive Herod, a man with a taste for the strange. And where Herod goes, so too does the shadowy figure that he calls the Captain.

To defeat them, Parker must form an uneasy alliance with a man he fears more than any other, the killer known as the Collector. . . .