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Draft:Dark Hollow

Dark Hollow
AuthorJohn Connolly
Cover artistMark Harrison
LanguageEnglish
SeriesCharlie Parker series
GenreCrime, suspense
PublisherHodder & Stoughton, Simon & Schuster
Publication date
2000
Pages489
ISBN0-340-72900-7
Preceded byEvery Dead Thing 
Followed byThe Killing Kind 

Dark Hollow is a 2000 crime novel written by Irish author John Connolly. The second book in his Charlie Parker series, the novel follows private investigator Charlie Parker as he returns to his hometown of Scarborough, Maine, and tries to find and execute a serial killer who had eluded his grandfather thirty years earlier, to put the spirits of the victims to rest.

The novel was published by Hodder & Stoughton in Ireland and the United Kingdom and by Simon & Schuster in the United States. It was critically acclaimed for its well-researched details, complex, multi-layered plot, and well-written prose, and affirmed Connolly as a leading crime novelist.

Plot summary

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Emily Watts flees from a nursing home and makes a raving warning about the return of Caleb Kyle before killing herself with a security guard's gun. Meanwhile, a botched ransom exchange ends with the deaths of an FBI agent, four Cambodians and three members of the Boston Mafia,[1] along with the disappearance of millions of dollars of mob money.[2]

Retired New York City police detective Charlie Parker returns to his hometown of Scarborough, Maine,[3] to start over as a private investigator.[2] Parker agrees to collect owed child support for Rita Ferris. Her violent ex-husband Billy Purdue ambushes Parker and threatens his life, but learning his purpose readily pays from a stack of hundred-dollar bills.[4] Parker later delivers the money but days later mother and son are found dead with Rita's lips sewn shut.[5] The police suspect Purdue, who has gone into hiding.[6] Parker believes that someone else is responsible but the police are disinterested in his theories, holding a grudge because Parker once slept with the police chief's wife.[7]

Parker investigates the disappearances and deaths of a half-dozen young women, who were found hanging from a large tree 36 years earlier by his maternal grandfather,[5] policeman Bob Warren.[6] Warren was convinced that Caleb Kyle, the mysterious backwoods man who informed him of their location, was responsible, but never found him again.[4] Haunted by an increasing number of ghosts from recent and past killings, Parker suspects that the serial killer has resurfaced and will kill again, and is somehow connected to Purdue.[6][7][5]

To find answers, Parker and his associates Angel and Louis search for Purdue, who is also hunted by the local and state police, mobster Tony Celli, and a pair of killers who want the money for themselves.[6][2] Crossfire between the competing groups leave many dead in the dense forest at the onset of winter.[5][7] It all leads Parker to the small town of Dark Hollow, where Kyle's memory is perpetuated in a schoolyard rhyme: "Caleb Kyle, Caleb Kyle, when you see him, run a mile."[5]

Major characters

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  • Charlie "Bird" Parker[a] – the main character, a private investigator who can see dead people and seeks to avenge them to ease his conscience over the death of his wife and daughter in the first novel of the series.[6]
  • Rita Ferris – the victim who gets brutally murdered along with her son, Donald.
  • Billy Purdue – the ex-husband of Rita Ferris and father of her son. He is the chief suspect of her murder case. The character's name is a play on the French word for "lost".[9]
  • Angel and Louis – A contract killer and thief, respectively, who are friends and allies of Parker.[7] They are a gay couple and have the standout dialogue in the novel.[8]
  • George Grunfeld – he dies earlier in the book as a result of lymphosarcoma . He is one of the people who tried to convince Charlie not to retire after the death of his wife and daughter.
  • Bob Warren - Parker's maternal grandfather and former policeman who tried to find Caleb Kyle after he was convinced Kyle was responsible for the murders of half-dozen women who found hanging on a tree years ago.
  • Caleb Kyle - The main antagonist and serial killer in the story.

Development and writing

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Dark Hollow is the second novel by Irish author John Connolly and the second in his Charlie Parker series.[3] He began developing it in 1997,[10] after he was paid 350,000 pounds for the Irish and British publishing rights to his first novel, Every Dead Thing (1999).[11][12] Connolly travelled to the United States for research, taking notes, photographs, and newspaper clippings, then returned to Dublin to write the first draft.[10][2]

Connolly was inspired by American crime fiction (there being no tradition of Irish detective novels)[10] and used the genre to explore universal "themes of morality, corruption [and] of violence and its impact on society".[13] The novel is partially based on the murder of a woman in Dublin, which he had covered while working as a crime reporter.[14] Connolly also used fairy stories as inspiration, to get the "feel of monsters [and being] lost in the woods".[15]

He set the novel in Maine, where he had briefly worked as a waiter[16] in 1991 at the Black Point Inn at Prouts Neck in Scarborough. He visited Maine annually until at least 2000, and based much of the novel on Scarborough.[17] Connolly felt that "every word became a problem" as he sought to be genuine without becoming imitative.[18] According to Connolly, the manuscript went through more than twenty rewrites,[10] edited by Sue Fletcher.[19] In a 2007 interview, Connolly said of writing the novel that he "felt the need to cram everything in, and immerse [the reader] in a truly extreme experience".[20]

The novel's title is taken from the song of the same name by Gene Clark.[21]

I'd rather be in some dark hollow where the sun don't ever shine
Then to be at home alone and knowin' that you're gone
Would cause me to lose my mind

— "Dark Hollow"[22]

Publication history

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Dark Hollow was published by Hodder & Stoughton, officially released on 6 January 2000 in Ireland and the UK, though copies were in bookstores for the preceding Christmas season.[23] It was published in paperback in September 2000.[17] It was first published in the United States by Simon & Schuster in July 2001,[24] with the publisher organizing an 18-city promotional tour for Connolly.[14]

Reception

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Sales

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The novel reached No. 1 on the Irish best-seller list (hardcover fiction) and No. 4 in the UK.[18]

Critical response

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Literary critics responded positively to the novel, finding it an improvement upon Connelly's acclaimed first novel.[6][3][2] Critical consensus was that the novel was well-researched, complex and well-written, with Connelly having developed a unique style through his perspective as an outsider writing about American crime.[16][21]

Maxim Jakubowski of The Guardian called the novel a "complex and gripping mystery".[25] Mark Timlin of The Independent noted how the peril, terror and brutality in the novel was balanced by a deep empathy for long-suffering people.[5] Gerry McCarthy of The Sunday Times called Connelly's novels "revenge tragedies written to the conventions of the crime genre [with] a taste of pure Gothic".[26] Martin Spice of the New Strait Times praised the writing with its "almost mystical and certainly lyrical passages".[9] Philip Kerr of Mail on Sunday and a reviewer for Publishers Weekly favourably compared the novel to the works of Stephen King, noting the Maine setting, violent atmosphere, and supernatural elements.[27][2] Jakubowski and Kerr stated that the novel affirmed Connelly as a top crime novelist.[25][27]

Hughes, Spice and Timlin felt that the novel was too long at 489 pages, with Hughes also feeling that Parker's narration was too verbose.[5][9][1]

Awards and nominations

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Dark Hollow was nominated for a 2001 Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel by US-based Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine.[28]

Footnotes

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Notes

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  1. ^ The novel makes no references to jazz musician Charlie "Bird" Parker.[8]

References

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  1. ^ a b Hughes, Declan (23 January 2000). "Characterisation's the key to a life of crime writing". Sunday Herald. Glasgow: Scottish Media Newspapers. p. 11. ProQuest 331216152.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Dark Hollow". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "Dark Hollow by Cohn Connolly". Mystery Sequels. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b "Dark Hollow". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Timlin, Mark (9 January 2000). "Books: When you see him, run a mile - Dark Hollow by John Connolly Hodder pounds 10 Mark Timlin on a crime writer with a brilliant control of menace". The Independent. London. p. 11. ProQuest 311633325.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Rogers, Wayne C. (21 April 2013). "John Connolly 'Dark Hollow' Review". Horror Novel Reviews. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d Kaveney, Roz (1 February 2000). "Tuesday Books: In the face of evil, something must be done". The Independent. London. p. 5. ProQuest 311633384.
  8. ^ a b Baker, Keith (15 January 2000). "Menace in Maine: Dark Hollow by John Connolly". The Irish Times. p. 67. ProQuest 310565422.
  9. ^ a b c Spice, Martin (15 April 2001). "Truly a Thriller". New Straits Times. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. p. 12. ProQuest 266657867.
  10. ^ a b c d Connolly, John (22 January 2000). "Order is a relative concept". The Irish Times. p. 69. ProQuest 310507342.
  11. ^ Cazzulino, Michelle (17 February 2001). "Crime does pay". The Daily Telegraph. Sydney, Australia. p. G08. ProQuest 358609562.
  12. ^ Bradley, Seamus (17 March 2001). "The first policeman". The Age. Melbourne, Australia. p. 6. ProQuest 363425073.
  13. ^ Heffernan, Ryan (24 February 2001). "Ready to kill someone". The Courier-Mail. Brisbane, Australia. p. M05. ProQuest 345663018.
  14. ^ a b Kayle, Hilary S. "John Connolly: The Irish Advantage". Publishers Weekly. Vol. 248, no. 38. p. 39. ProQuest 197036327.
  15. ^ Davies, Geoff (24 March 2001). "Making crime pay". The Dominion. Wellington, New Zealand. p. 29. ProQuest 315284655.
  16. ^ a b Laing, Allan (24 February 2000). "Unamerican activities". The Herald. Glasgow. p. 21. ProQuest 332786163.
  17. ^ a b Connolly, John (15 August 2000). "As good as it got: Thriller writer John Connolly recalls his first trip to the US". The Irish Times. p. 10. ProQuest 309309207.
  18. ^ a b Wilson, Andrew (29 January 2000). "Darkness in a strange land". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. p. 11. ProQuest 326821437.
  19. ^ Foley, Catherine (15 January 2000). "Not so grisly". The Irish Times. p. 77. ProQuest 310514473.
  20. ^ Forshaw, Barry (11 May 2007). "Dancing int he dark; John Connolly has won international acclaim for fiction that makes the flesh creep". The Independent. London. p. 1. ProQuest 311308934.
  21. ^ a b Brauner, David (24 March 2000). "Book bytes". Jerusalem Post. p. 12B. ProQuest 319264781.
  22. ^ Browning, Bill. Dark Hollow (CD). recorded by Gene Clark, released posthumously on album Flying High (1998).
  23. ^ "Fireworks for Vivien sadbh(at)irish-times". The Irish Times. Dublin. 16 October 1999. p. 69. ProQuest 310440715.
  24. ^ Valhouli, Christina. "Summertime's sizzling reads". Publishers Weekly. Vol. 248, no. 21. p. 34. ProQuest 197043529.
  25. ^ a b Jakubowski, Maxim (18 December 1999). "Big in Crime". The Guardian. p. 10. ProQuest 245455571.
  26. ^ McCarthy, Gerry (11 March 2001). "Exile on Maine's streets". The Sunday Times. London. p. 18. ProQuest 316861747.
  27. ^ a b Kerr, Philip (16 January 2000). "A dead clever way with murder". Mail on Sunday. p. 68. ProQuest 328754287.
  28. ^ "Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine – Barry Awards". Deadly Pleasures. Bountiful, Utah: Refunding Makes Cents, Inc. Archived from the original on 23 April 2012.
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