John Connolly – The Reapers

ISBN: 0340936681

‘But there are other kilings that are harder to connnect, the links between them obscured by great distances, by the passage of years, by the layering of this honeycomb world as time folds softly upon itself.

The honeycomb world does not hide secrets; it stores them. it is a repository of buried memories, of half-forgotten acts.

In the honeycomb world, everything is connected.’

I bought this novel from Tesco the other week after sampling the first page. So much weight and respectability attaches itself to ‘literary novels’ yet so many I find are turgidly writtten wearing their worthiness like some linguistic strait jacket. This begins with a fateful, bleakly panoramic tone about murder which is both compelling and ensnaring. The voice knows things only too well. Proximity here engenders knowledge and how much knowledge can anyone bear to bare?!

I loved the honeycomb metaphor: so sweet and lyrical yet so ambivalent too! Everything connects indeed and how we may come to rue such connections.

The novel’s protagonists are a couple of assasins called Angel and Louis who love each other more passionately than most and have secret histories worthy of Faulkner or Harper Lee. This is riveting writing. Tales of the City meets Cormac Mcccarthy with a sharp seasoning of Flannery O’Connor and james lee Burke.

Wild!

Reviewed By: Tusitala

Posted in Book Reviews