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Charlie "Bird" Parker is a policeman with the NYPD. His marriage is deteriorating; he's been avoiding the home fires. One night he returns from an evening at a local bar to face a truly horrific scene: his wife and daughter have been murdered. This was not a nice clean little shooting or stabbing, but a gruesome act of torture that was committed upon its victims. And the result is described in a way that can only horrify and sicken the reader, involving the flaying of human flesh. Yet, the sheer force of Connolly's prose forces you to continue, even when you know you are in for some truly graphic horror. Bird leaves the force and becomes a detective. His sole mission in life is to find the beast who did this to his wife and daughter. He becomes consumed by the quest, only to find that the killer may be obsessed with him as well. Bird refers to the killer as "The Traveling Man" and spends every waking moment on following a trail that is growing colder. Little does he know, but Bird is being toyed with by The Traveling Man with his every move being catalogued and reacted upon. Bird's ex-partner asks him to track down a missing girl. At first, Bird resists but then realizes that it may help him to turn his mind to something new. But there is nothing new, only a connection with the old, a connection to a killer who is guilty of sexually sadistic homicide. In this case, he uncovers a string of child torture/murders. In trying to understand the Traveling Man, Bird works with a criminal psychologist named Rachel Wolfe. She is the first woman in a long time who is able to appeal to him and move him from his emotional apathy. It is she who discovers that the killer is a person of high intelligence, a person who has turned his victims into works of art in imitation of obscure artists from the past. He is creating memento mori, death's heads. He believes he's creating works of art while crisscrossing the boundaries between torture and execution, intellectual curiosity and sadism. This book is not for the faint of heart. The serial killer is depraved, vicious and frightening. The graphic descriptions are numerous. Yet, I could not put it down. This is a tormented, riveting piece of work, diluted only by the existence of too many sub-plots which only served to confuse the main narrative. Surprisingly, I was able to identify the killer early on, but I was totally engrossed in watching this person be exposed to Bird and had to remember to breathe during their final showdown. Connolly's first effort will haunt you. The characters are extremely well realized, and the prose can be elegiac. This wasn't an easy read, but one that was worth the pain.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, August 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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