Review: THE WHISPERERS

The Whisperers by John Connolly
Read by Holter Graham
Book 9 of Charlie Parker series
Genre: paranormal crime fiction
Format: hardback, unabridged audiobook

About The Whisperers:

“‘Oh, little one,’ he whispered, as he gently stroked her cheek, the first time he had touched her in fifteen years. ‘What have they done to you? What have they done to us all?’ ”In his latest dark and chilling Charlie Parker thriller, New York Times bestselling author John Connolly takes us to the border between Maine and Canada. It is there, in the vast and porous Great North Woods, that a dangerous smuggling operation is taking place, run by a group of disenchanted former soldiers, newly returned from Iraq. Illicit goods—drugs, cash, weapons, even people—are changing hands. And something else has changed hands. Something ancient and powerful and evil.

The authorities suspect something is amiss, but what they can’t know is that it is infinitely stranger and more terrifying than anyone can imagine. Anyone, that is, except private detective Charlie Parker, who has his own intimate knowledge of the darkness in men’s hearts. As the smugglers begin to die one after another in apparent suicides, Parker is called in to stop the bloodletting. The soldiers’ actions and the objects they have smuggled have attracted the attention of the reclusive Herod, a man with a taste for the strange. And where Herod goes, so too does the shadowy figure that he calls the Captain. To defeat them, Parker must form an uneasy alliance with a man he fears more than any other, the killer known as the Collector. . . .

Source: Info in the About The Whisperers was taken from GoodReads at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7193546-the-whisperers on 02/11/2012.

Review:

This is the first time I have listened to Holter Graham and his voice took a little getting used to. But once I did, it was fine. However, when I stop listening to the audiobook to say, go to work or go shopping, once I come back to the book I had to start getting used to his voice all over again. It wasn't an annoying voice, it was just not favourable to my ears. Or it may be that I had gotten used to hearing Jeff Harding as Charlie Parker that my subconscious is finding it hard to believe that this is Charlie Parker's POV I'm hearing. Either way, it contributed to my diminished enjoyment of the book.

This is also the book where John Connolly deviated from the christian angels and demons' "War In Heaven" theme. For the first time in the Charlie Parker saga, John Connolly brought in gods and demons from another pantheon. Belief systems other than the christian mythology, i.e., the Assyrian and Babylonian gods and goddesses. The legend of the Pandora's box. I find myself wondering if the author is going to branch out fully into different mythologies and belief systems around the world with this series and if subsequent off-shoot serieses is going to follow... That would be interesting to see... Anyway, I think this book's best feature is: the way this author is able to seamlessly blend the old belief systems and current events into a gritty Charlie Parker thriller!

Empirical Evaluation:
Story telling quality = 4.5
Character development = 4.5
Story itself = 4
Ending = 4
World building = 4.5
Cover art = 4
Pace = (N/A)
Plot = 4
Narrator = 3.5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 cherries