John Connolly - Every Dead Thing

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «John Connolly - Every Dead Thing» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию без сокращений). В некоторых случаях можно слушать аудио, скачать через торрент в формате fb2 и присутствует краткое содержание. Жанр: Триллер, на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале библиотеки ЛибКат.

Every Dead Thing: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Every Dead Thing»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

“A truly harrowing murder plot… An ambitious foray…deep into Hannibal Lecter territory… The extravagantly gifted Connolly, living up to his title, is never too busy for another flashback to Bird’s violent past en route to his final confrontation with the Traveling Man.” – Kirkus Reviews
“For me, the best thing about an author’s first novel is its untarnished honesty. John Connolly’s EVERY DEAD THING has that reckless intensity. Set against the gritty canvas of a serial killer loose in New York City, John Connolly’s writing is as lilting and refreshing and as tempestuous as an Irish rainstorm. Warning: Don’t start this book unless you have time to finish it.” – Paul Lindsay, former FBI agent and author of Witness to the Truth
“Classic American crime fiction; it’s hard to believe that John Connolly was born and raised on the Emerald Isle.” – amazon.com
“[A] darkly ingenious debut novel… The New Orleanssequence of the novel sing[s]… The rural Virginia town is petty, bitter perfection: no mean feat for a native Dubliner. The prose rings of ’40s L.A. noir, à la Chandler and Hammett, but the grisly deaths, poetic cops, and psychic episodes set this tale apart.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An ambitious, moral, disturbing tale with a stunning climax… In many ways its terror quotient exceeds that of Thomas Harris’ great work.” – The Times (London)
“Connolly writes with confidence, a swaggering self-assurance that is almost breathtaking in a first novel.” – Dublin Evening Herald (Ireland)
“A debut novel of stunning complexity… The tension starts on the first page and continues right through the last, concluding in a dramatic and ambiguous way that could disturb readers’ thoughts for days. A work of fiction that stays with you long after the book is closed is a rare and beautiful thing. This one goes right up there on the year’s list of the best.” – St. Petersburg Times (FL)
“A nonstop, action-packed tale that also has a warm side where love and loyalty (not DNA) make a person human.” – Barnesandnoble.com
“Shades of The Silence of the Lambs here-but this debut book by Dubliner Connolly also has echoes of James Crumley, Patricia Cornwell, and Lawrence Block… A terrifying finale… Connolly manages to keep the tension simmering right to the very end.” – Express Star (UK)
“Absolutely spellbinding… This is not a book for the timid.” – Naples Daily News (FL)
“A big, meaty, often superbly written novel-astonishing, for a first-time author, in its scope and apparent veracity… A book of sudden, horrifying violence and no-holds-barred explicit scene-of-the-crime detail… A painstakingly researched crime novel, impressive both in terms of its driven central character [and] its scrupulously evoked geography… Impressive, too, is the superior, topflight prose and sheer momentum of the plot.” – Tangled Web (UK)
“[An] exciting, scary, and darkly humorous story that deserves to be a success.” – Irish News
“A highly intelligent and exciting novel, with almost enough action and story for two books. The grim and grisly events are emotionally balanced by the book’s dark humor and Bird’s vulnerability.” – Library Journal
“[A] stunning debut… Painstaking research, superb characterization, and an ability to tell a story that’s chilling and thought-provoking make this a terrific thriller.” – The Mirror (UK)
“Brilliant… While Thomas Harris’ Hannibal is the year’s most anticipated thriller, John Connolly’s EVERY DEAD THING might just be the best… A real adrenaline rush… Simply too good to be missed-or to put down.” – The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)

Every Dead Thing — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Every Dead Thing», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

I ran to where the jogger lay. Blood flowed from the wounds in his body, creating a dark red shadow on the ground. The sirens were close now and I could see onlookers gathered in the sunlight, watching me as I stood over the body.

The patrol car pulled up minutes later. I already had my hands in the air and my gun on the ground before me, my permit beside it. Fat Ollie’s killer was lying at my feet, blood now pooled around his head and linked to the red tide that was congealing slowly in the alley’s central gutter. One patrolman kept me covered while his partner patted me down, with more force than was strictly necessary, against the wall. The cop patting me down was young, perhaps no more than twenty-three or twenty-four, and cocky as hell.

“Shit, we got Wyatt Earp here, Sam,” he said. “Shootin’ it out like it was High Noon.”

“Wyatt Earp wasn’t in High Noon,” I corrected him, as his partner checked my ID. The cop punched me hard in the kidneys in response and I fell to my knees. I heard more sirens nearby, including the telltale whine of an ambulance.

“You’re a funny guy, hotshot,” said the young cop. “Why’d you shoot him?”

“You weren’t around,” I replied, my teeth gritted in pain. “If you’d been here I’d have shot you instead.”

He was just about to cuff me when a voice I recognized said: “Put it away, Harley.” I looked over my shoulder at his partner, Sam Rees. I recognized him from my days on the force and he recognized me. I don’t think he liked what he saw.

“He used to be a cop. Leave him be.”

And then the three of us waited in silence until the others joined us.

Two more blue-and-whites arrived before a mud brown Nova dumped a figure in plain clothes on the curb. I looked up to see Walter Cole walking toward me. I hadn’t seen him in almost six months, not since his promotion to lieutenant. He was wearing a long brown leather coat, incongruous in the heat. “Ollie Watts?” he said, indicating the shooter with an inclination of his head. I nodded.

He left me alone for a time as he spoke with uniformed cops and detectives from the local precinct. I noticed that he was sweating heavily in his coat.

“You can come in my car,” he said when he eventually returned, eyeing the cop called Harley with ill-concealed distaste. He motioned some more detectives toward him and made some final comments in quiet, measured tones before waving me toward the Nova.

“Nice coat,” I said appreciatively as we walked to his car. “How many girls you got in your stable?”

Walter’s eyes glinted briefly. “Lee gave me this coat for my birthday. Why do you think I’m wearing it in this god-damned heat? You fire any shots?”

“A couple.”

“You do know that there are laws against discharging firearms in public places, don’t you?”

“I know that but I’m not sure about the guy dead on the ground back there. I’m not sure that the guy who shot him knows either. Maybe you could try a poster campaign.”

“Very funny. Now get in the car.”

I did as he said and we pulled away from the curb, the onlookers gaping curiously at us as we headed off through the crowded streets.

2

FIVE HOURS had elapsed since the death of Fat Ollie Watts, his girlfriend, Monica Mulrane, and the shooter, as yet unidentified. I had been interviewed by a pair of detectives from Homicide, neither of whom I knew. Walter Cole did not participate. I was brought coffee twice but otherwise I was left alone after the questionings. Once, when one of the detectives left the room to consult with someone, I caught a glimpse of a tall, thin man in a dark linen suit, the ends of his shirt collar sharp as razors, his red silk tie unwrinkled. He looked like a fed, a vain fed.

The wooden table in the interrogation room was pitted and worn, caffeine-stamped by the edges of hundreds, maybe thousands, of coffee cups. At the left-hand side of the table, near the corner, someone had carved a broken heart into the wood, probably with a nail. And I remembered that heart from another time, from the last time I sat in this room.

“Shit, Walter…”

“Walt, it ain’t a good idea for him to be here.”

Walter looked at the detectives ranged around the walls, slouched on chairs around the table.

“He’s not here,” he said. “As far as everyone in this room is concerned, you never saw him.”

The interrogation room was crowded with chairs and an additional table had been brought in. I was still on compassionate leave and, as it happened, two weeks away from quitting the force. My family had been dead for two weeks and the investigation had so far yielded nothing. With the agreement of Lieutenant Cafferty, soon to retire, Walter had called a meeting of detectives involved in the case and one or two others who were regarded as some of the best homicide detectives in the city. It was to be a combination of brainstorm and lecture, the lecture coming from Rachel Wolfe.

Wolfe had a reputation as a fine criminal psychologist, yet the Department steadfastly refused to consult her. It had its own deep thinker, Dr. Russell Windgate, but as Walter once put it: “Windgate couldn’t profile a fart.” He was a sanctimonious, patronizing bastard but he was also the commissioner’s brother, which made him a sanctimonious, patronizing, influential bastard.

Windgate was attending a conference of committed Freudians in Tulsa, and Walter had taken the opportunity to consult Wolfe. She sat at the head of the table, a stern but not unattractive woman in her early thirties, with long, dark red hair that rested on the shoulders of her dark blue business suit. Her legs were crossed and a blue pump hung from the end of her right foot.

“You all know why Bird wants to be here,” continued Walter. “You’d all want the same thing, if you were in his place.” I had bullied and cajoled him to let me sit in on the briefing. I had called in favors I didn’t even have the right to call in, and Walter had relented. I didn’t regret doing what I had done.

The others in the room remained unconvinced. I could see it in their faces, in the way they shifted their gaze from us, in the shrug of a shoulder and the unhappy twist of a mouth. I didn’t care. I wanted to hear what Wolfe had to say. Walter and I took seats and waited for her to begin.

Wolfe took a pair of glasses from the tabletop and put them on. Beside her left hand, the carved broken heart shone wood-bright. She glanced through some notes, pulled out two sheets from the sheaf, and began.

“Right, I don’t know how familiar you are with all this, so I’ll take it slowly.” She paused for a moment. “Detective Parker, you may find some of this difficult.” There was no apology in her voice; it was a simple statement of fact. I nodded and she continued. “What we’re dealing with here appears to be sexual homicide, sadistic sexual homicide.”

I traced the carved heart with the tip of my finger, the texture of the grain briefly returning me to the present. The door of the interrogation room opened, and through the gap, I saw the fed pass by. A clerk entered with a white I Love NY cup. The coffee smelled as if it had been brewing since that morning. When I put in the creamer it created only the slightest difference in the color of the liquid. I sipped it and grimaced.

“A sexual homicide generally involves some element of sexual activity as the basis for the sequence of events leading to death,” continued Wolfe, sipping at her coffee. “The stripping of the victims and the mutilation of the breasts and genitals indicate a sexual element to the crime, yet we have no evidence of penetration in either victim by either penis, fingers, or foreign objects. The child’s hymen was undamaged and there was no evidence of vaginal trauma in the adult victim.

Читать дальше
Тёмная тема
Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Every Dead Thing»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Every Dead Thing» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё непрочитанные произведения.


Отзывы о книге «Every Dead Thing»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Every Dead Thing» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.

x