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Product Description: A brilliantly chilling novel by New York Times bestselling author John Connolly about a chain of killings, linked obscurely by great distances and the passage of years, and the settling of their blood-debts -- past, present, and future. As a small boy, Louis witnesses an unspeakable crime that takes the life of a member of his small, southern community. He grows up and moves on, but he is forever changed by the cruel and brutal nature of the act. It lights a fire deep within him that burns white and cold, a quiet flame just waiting to ignite. Now, years later, the sins of his life are reaching into his present, bringing with them the buried secrets and half-forgotten acts of his past. Someone is hunting him, targeting his home, his businesses, and his partner, Angel. The instrument of revenge is Bliss, a killer of killers, the most feared of assassins. Bliss is a Reaper, a lethal tool to be applied toward the ultimate end, but he is also a man with a personal vendetta. Hardened by their pasts, Louis and Angel decide to strike back. While they form a camaraderie that brings them solace, it offers them no shelter from the fate that stalks them. When they mysteriously disappear, their friends are forced to band together to find them. They are led by private detective Charlie Parker, a killer himself, a Reaper in waiting. Connolly's triumphant prose and unerring rendering of his tortured characters mesmerize and chill. He creates a world where everyone is corrupt, murderers go unpunished, but betrayals are always avenged. Yet another masterpiece from a proven talent, The Reapers will terrify and transfix. Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-05
A Haunted Past
The action in this powerful and graphic novel centers on the background of one recurring character in Mr. Connolly's books, Louis, both as a boy as well as his development as a Reaper--a professional killer. By means of flashbacks and forwards, the story develops to a momentous conclusion. Along the way, we learn of his boyhood and past transgressions, as well as his personality and businesses.
When Louis accepts a contract, Angel, his lover and partner, has trepidations, but goes along with the flow. Meanwhile, Bliss, a killer of killers, is hunting Louis, who years before was assigned to eliminate him. Instead, Bliss was injured and survived the attempt. Now he seeks revenge on the very grounds where Louis and Angel attempt to fulfill their latest contract. Instead they become the hunted, with little at their disposal to survive but their ingenuity (and some friends).
"The Reapers" is an interesting psychological study of how Louis has developed as a professional assassin, while maintaining a semblance of normality, raising questions about why a person is selected as a target, among other indications of individuality. Carefully crafted, this dark but deep novel rises above the level of mere crime fiction. The writing and characterizations are sharp and realistic, and the situations drawn almost photographic. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Date: 2008-06-30
Connolly keeps readers coming back for more
Those who follow John Connolly's mythos of bedeviled detective Charlie Parker have been wondering since the conclusion of 2007's THE UNQUIET precisely what Parker would do next. His license pulled and his family gone, Parker would seem to be on the verge of...something. But it appears that whatever it is will have to wait a bit, as THE REAPERS goes in another direction from Parker, though not entirely off his map. It is a trip that fans of Connolly will savor from beginning to end.
THE REAPERS is principally the story of Louis, the enigmatic killer who Parker occasionally calls upon for backup. The narrative cuts back and forth in time, from Louis's early life in a small southern town, where, barely into adolescence, he committed his first murder, to the present, where an action in his past --- a contract killing, carried out without rancor or personal malice --- is coming back to pursue him with a dire and unstoppable messenger. Along the way we meet Gabriel, Louis's mentor and truly the closest thing he has ever had to a father, a man who introduced Louis to the world of the Reapers. Louis left that world after developing the rudimentary beginnings of a conscience --- not much, but enough to ruin him for their purposes --- yet he remains just as dangerous, as readers of Connolly's other books well know.
Leaving the Reapers meant leaving Gabriel. Suddenly, however, Gabriel is back in Louis's life. Long ago, at Gabriel's behest, Louis killed Jon Leehagan. It took Arthur, Jon's father, years to determine who had carried out the assignment. A man of great wealth and power, Arthur is now visiting a terrible vengeance on all involved, and using as his instrument an individual who bears a great and unyielding grudge against Louis for his own reasons. Louis and his partner Angel are given the ability to go against Arthur on his own ground, but things go terribly wrong. Help for them is coming from an unexpected source, but even that may not be enough as a cataclysmic conclusion is played out against the quiet of upstate New York, where endings will take place and, possibly, new beginnings will occur.
Connolly is at the top of his game here. He takes great risks, peeling back the story of one of his most unique protagonists while keeping Parker at bay for the most part, and introduces new characters, some of whom will no doubt have roles to play in future efforts. But what the book arguably signifies is the broadness of the canvas on which the author paints. While Parker is a fascinating character, there are a number of people in his orbit who can hold a novel on their own. At least two, and possibly more, are introduced who could be the fodder for an entire book, tied into Parker's life or not.
After seven Parker novels (if one counts BAD MEN), Connolly can swerve back into Parker's life or meander on the edge of it, successfully merging the new with the familiar. As strange as it may seem, what we have read from him to date may well be but an introduction to where he is going. And if THE REAPERS is any indication of what the journey will be like, you will want a lifetime ticket.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-27
One of the Most Dependable Authors in Crime Fiction
After reading and enjoying the previous books in John Connolly's series featuring the haunted detective Charlie "Bird" Parker and his equally troubled hitmen-for-hire associates, Angel and Louis, it comes as absolutely no surprise to me that the latest volume THE REAPERS is another blistering, beautifully written entry.
In the previous books (EVERY DEAD THING, DARK HOLLOW, THE KILLING KIND, THE WHITE ROAD, THE BLACK ANGEL, and THE UNQUIET), Parker was the main character, with Angel and Louis generally showing up in the last act. In THE REAPERS, this method is reversed, with Parker relegated to the final act, and Angel and Louis taking center stage. It's a bold move, and a welcome one, as it only adds more layers to an already dense and intriguing world ("the honeycomb world", as Parker calls it.) If there's a fault to be found here, it's that Louis's character is explored in more depth than Angel's, and with characters this intriguing (and funny), I would have liked to see more, or at least an equal amount of the latter.
The plot is deceptively simple:
Louis was once a "Reaper", part of a group of hitmen run by an enigmatic man named Gabriel. Now someone connected to one of Louis's past targets is coming for him, threatening not only his own life, but the life of his partner and lover, Angel. When both men vanish, it falls to their associate and friend, Charlie Parker to find them. Meanwhile a killer named Bliss wants Louis dead for reasons of his own...
While I wouldn't rate THE REAPERS as the strongest entry in the series (that honor is split between THE KILLING KIND and THE WHITE ROAD), it was definitely a fast and compelling read, and fleshes out nicely characters who have, to this point, been somewhat peripheral.
THE REAPERS will be of definite interest to anyone who likes their thrillers a smidge more cerebral than most. Fans of the author's previous work will love it.
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Date: 2008-06-26
Louis's mystery tops Parker's supernatural in this one
I read this a month ago and didn't plan to review it. Now I'm only doing so because I'm surprised by the relatively high proportion of negative reviews and want to boost the positives a bit.
I've read all the books in this series and of course liked some more than others. The writing is great but the series gets too supernatural for me at times. As more of a mystery fan, Louis and Angel have actually been my favorite characters in the series rather than Parker so I'm happy to see them at the center of this book, and to learn more about other characters in their lives.
Not a book which will change your life, but one which will keep you entertained and that's all I ask from titles like this. Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-24
Grace Under Fire
If you're looking for a definition of "atmospheric" in literature, John Connolly's hauntingly melancholy and melodic prose aptly defines the genre, and "The Reapers" is certainly another noble effort in the transformation of tortured souls to words. Brooding, dark, and allegorical - yeah, it's all of that and more - and undeniably Irish in creating a mood that reads beautifully in despair. But if there is a problem here - and there was for me - it's that Connolly's atmospheric pressure smothers the story, the characters, and ultimately the enjoyment of his latest journey of troubled souls neatly wrapped into some of pop fictions most thoughtful thrillers.
So I'm torn here. As usual, the prose reads deep and lyrical - chock full of random phases with truly visceral impact - the kind of writing that will have you setting the book aside to absorb the impact of lines that read more like Dylan Thomas or James Joyce than crime masters like Raymond Chandler or Lawrence Block. And the relegation of Charlie "Bird" Parker to a cameo role, putting the bizarrely brutal and literally odd couple of Louis and Angel center stage was a refreshing and welcome twist. But Louis' boyhood in a Civil Rights-era South leaned to bit too far to the melodramatic - a well told tale but one told too often to capture awe or new found irony, while Angel's tale of abuse was poignant, but hardly unique. The plot, while appropriately convoluted and carefully wrought, was likewise pedestrian and in the end, uncovered few surprises.
So three stars today, and maybe I'd give it four stars tomorrow, but make no mistake: while beautifully written and carefully crafted in John Connolly's somber, sober, and "honeycomb" hand, this is not the five star work I'd associate with "The White Road", "Dark Hollow", or the surrealistic and eerie "The Killing Kind." For the Connolly fan, it's a must read, and a definite step up from last year's "The Unquiet". For everyone else, read it for the poetry that may change your perspective of what contemporary crime can be, but "The Reapers" will leave the hard core action and thrills fan wanting. |
