Book Review: A Time Of Torment

Increasingly, True Detective seems like a unique cultural moment when the stars aligned and we got one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Everyone – including its creator, Nic Pizzolatto, who presided over the absolute debacle of the show’s second season – has tried and failed to capture some of its atmospheric magic.
   But Irish author John Connolly, who’s resurrected his iconic American detective Charlie Parker for another outing, obviously feels it’s worth another go. It’s difficult not to see parallels between Pizzolatto’s macabre masterpiece, in which detectives descended on an isolated New Orleans community to track down a killer called The Yellow King, and Connolly’s effort, in which Parker, er, descends on an isolated West Virginia community to investigate a character called The Dead King. For all its parallels with the TD aesthetic, A Time Of Torment stands as a fine piece of work on its own and Connolly remains a master storyteller.