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2000s: The woods of Maine should be a retreat for Charlie Parker…
2000s: The woods of Maine should be a retreat for Charlie Parker…
Still raw from the brutal slayings of his wife and daughter, and the events surrounding the capture of their killer, The Travelling Man, Charlie Parker retreats to the wintry Maine landscape of his childhood. By following in the steps of his beloved grandfather, Parker hopes to heal his spirit and get through the bitter anniversary of Jennifer and Susan’s murder. But the echoes of the past that await him are not all benign. In a gruesome re-enactment of Parker’s own nightmares, another young woman is killed with her child and his brief involvement in their lives impels Parker to hunt their vicious murderer. As the death toll mounts, Parker comes to realise that the true answer to the puzzle lies thirty years in the past, in a tree with strange fruit, in his own grandfather’s history, and in the perverted desires of a monster incarnate – Caleb Kyle.
Charlie Parker retreats to the wintry Maine landscape of his childhood….
“It was not until the early 19th century, when the financial opportunities represented by Maine’s forests were recognised, that the interior as fully explored and surveyed leading the way into the Great North Woods. Mills were built in the wilderness to produce paper, pulp and to-by-fours. Schooners sailed up the Penobscot to lead pine and spruce timber that had been brought downstream from the farthest reaches of the north. Sawmills lined the river’s banks.”
The author himself says:
“I wanted to use the Maine landscape, the changing of the seasons, the cycles of nature, to illuminate the novel. The book is filled with images of predatory nature and, combined with the onset of winter; I hope gives the book some of its power.”
Destination: Maine, Scarborough Author/guide: John Connolly Departure Time: 2000s
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