Michael Hicks's Reviews > The Nameless Ones

John Connolly returns with his nineteenth Charlie Parker thriller, this one largely sans Charlie Parker as the focus shifts to series staple hitmen, Louis and Angel, who are seeking revenge against Serbian war criminals.

After detouring back into the early years of Charlie Parker's hunt for a serial killer in The Dirty South, The Nameless Ones returns us to the present-day, picking up shortly after A Book of Bones. While The Nameless Ones could theoretically function well-enough as a standalone, I suspect new readers, who are only just now entering into a series well into the double-digits, won't find some of Connolly's character beats quite as charming as long-time fans and will most likely be confused about the necessity of brief one- or two-chapter narrative detours to recount backstory for the Fulcis and Parker's current goings-on through the eyes of The Great Lost Bear bar-owner Dave Evans.

I was more than happy to return to these characters, though, if only momentarily. One the hand, I'm glad to be back in the present-day with these characters. On the other hand, I found myself missing Parker, who only puts in a few small cameos here, and I'm more than ready for the chance to reconnect with him for longer in a future novel.

Like The Reapers, The Nameless Ones is firmly centered around Louis and Angel, two characters that I love a great deal. Connolly's knack for crackling, whip-smart dialogue remains firmly intact with this odd couple pairing. I don't think I'll ever tire of Angel's harassment of FBI officials for keys to the secret bathrooms he knows they have hidden around the country, or Louis's wry and dry humor, such as when he's confronted with news of a family's reticence to bury their loved one whose head has gone missing following an assassination by bomb: "Funny how sentimental people can be."

Where The Nameless Ones ultimately fell short for me was in its villains. I couldn't find many ways to connect with the Vuksan brothers and quickly grew disinterested in the many detours the story takes to recount the very little they're up to as they sit in hiding waiting for fake passports to return them to Serbia. While they initiate some backroom deals and move around a few players to deadly effects, I found them quite boring, particularly in comparison to some of Connolly's past killers. The Vuksans make a bloody splash in the book's opening, and Connolly's depiction of a family's murder is deeply unsettling, but then do little else for the book's remainder. Every time the story shifted focus toward them, everything ground to a halt. More interesting was Zorya, a possibly supernatural girl and merciless sadist, who accompanies the Vuksan's as they seek to flee the country. Although she plays second fiddle to the war criminals, she's wonderfully enigmatic and provides some of the book's more chilling moments.

While Connolly is one of crime fiction's best, particularly when it comes to supernatural thrillers, The Nameless Ones was a near-miss for me. It's still good, but it just can't compete with those top-tier Charlie Parker books (and there's a lot of them!). As ever, though, I'm eager to see what comes next.