Charlie Parker: A Mysterious Profile

By John Connolly

The New York Times–bestselling author tells the story behind private detective Charlie Parker, the haunted hero of John Connolly’s eerie supernatural crime thrillers.

Recounting his days as a journalist for the Irish Times and the Dublin murder that led him to question the ways we think about perpetrators and victims; discussing his crime-fiction idols; and reflecting on empathy and evil, John Connolly offers a short work that lets us learn more about his character Charlie Parker—a former NYPD detective who loses everything and struggles to remain human in the aftermath—and about the writer himself.

Acclaim for John Connolly and the Charlie Parker novels

“One of the most darkly intriguing books this reviewer has encountered in more than three decades of reading crime fiction.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A supremely talented storyteller.” —Booklist

“Mr. Connolly’s slam-bang thriller is studded with memorable characters and boasts cliffhangers within cliffhangers.” —The Wall Street Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: MysteriousPress.com Open Road
• Release date: Apr 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504074391

John Connolly

John Connolly is the author of the #1 internationally bestselling Charlie Parker thrillers series, The Book of Lost Things and its sequel The Land of Lost Things, the Samuel Johnson Trilogy for younger readers, and (with Jennifer Ridyard) the Chronicles of the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnollyBooks.com, or follow him on Twitter @JConnollyBooks.

Book preview

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Charlie Parker

A Mysterious Profile

John Connolly

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I never met Belinda Pereira. By the time I heard her name spoken for the first time, she was already dead. But on the night that she was killed, I stood outside her apartment in the rain, and I listened as a detective described the circumstances of her death. She was 26 years old. Were it not for her, I don’t think I would be writing the books that I write. In a way, they are an attempt to make sense of her murder, and for that reason they all fail.

Because there was no sense to her murder.

Dublin is a peculiar city. It closes down for the Christmas season, and doesn’t really find its stride again until early in the New Year. When I worked as a journalist, Christmas was a period during which most staff journalists preferred not to work. It wasn’t simply that they wanted to spend time with their families, as most people do at that time of year, or to leave the grim winter weather behind and head for somewhere warmer; it was because nothing much really happened in Ireland at Christmas. During the Troubles, even the terrorists would call a brief ceasefire beginning about December 24th, so they could