#BookReview A Time of Torment by John Connolly @AtriaBooks @jconnollybooks

A Time of Torment by John Connolly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He intervened to prevent multiple killings and in doing so damned himself. His life was torn apart. He was imprisoned, brutalized.

But in his final days, with the hunters circling, he tells his story to private detective Charlie Parker. He speaks of the girl who was marked for death but was saved, of the ones who tormented him, and an entity that hides in a ruined stockade.

Parker is not like other men. He died, and was reborn. He is ready to wage war.

Now he will descend upon a strange, isolated community called the Cut, and face down a force of men who rule by terror, intimidation, and murder.

All in the name of the being they serve.

All in the name of the Dead King.

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A Time of Torment is one book that I have been deliberately delayed writing a review for. Not that the book was in any way bad, it's an utterly fantastic book. And, that's the problem. I just didn't know what to write. All I wanted was to tell you all that John Connolly has done it again. He has written a book that is so excruciating good that it's almost painful to finish it. 

For those of you that have never read a Charlie Parker is it good to know that this is book 14 in the series and I would advise not to read this book without at least have read the previous book or at least some book before. The journey Charlie Parker is on; his personal crusade is much easier to understand if you have read the books before this one. He is a man haunted, by the death of his wife and child, killed several years ago by a serial killer. However, his dead daughter is still with him, and she also has a connection with his new daughter. His friends are dangerous but loyal and Parker is fighting a battle against the darkness. And in this book is it the Dead King he is going after. And doing so is he going against the Cut community. 

The book's story is slow but in a good way. Everything takes its time and it suits the story so well. There is no rush. Everything happens for a reason, there are some revelations that I never saw coming and then comes the final confrontation towards the end.

John Connolly writes in such a way that makes me slow down my reading, I don't want to hurry the story. This is not a book that I feel should be rushed. Connolly's command of the languages is utterly perfect! There are few authors in my experience that can write like Connolly do, to utterly capture the reader's attention and keep it until the end.