Every Dead Thing

BLUF: Slow, but steady read. Good for those (like me) who naturally suspend their disbelief.

Meet Charlie, “Bird”. Bird is a poor excuse for a husband, but didn't deserve the loss of his wife and his daughter to a serial killer. After the death of his family, Bird left the NYPD for freelance detective work. Well, sort of. The book starts with Bird acting as a bounty hunter to pass the time, but he is soon wrapped into a case to find a missing woman as a favor to an old PD friend.

What should be a simple case soon becomes more complicated. As the bodies start piling up around the missing woman case, Bird also has to deal with the return of his wife and daughter's killer. Obsessively, Bird seeks to trap his family's killers. The hunt is on.

This book starts rather gruesomely, with the detailed killings of our main character's wife and child. A lot of people are not going to be interested in reading such details, but, for the rest of us, the morbid curiosity is all we need to get sucked into this book.

The first case is slow and not very entertaining. Bird travels to a town where nobody wants to deal with him. The case isn't very interesting and the effort the “bad guys” put into inconveniencing Bird is bizarre and excessive. The case has an enjoyable ending and I would have felt comfortable ending the book right then.

After the first case and a call from the killer himself/herself, Bird gets renewed motivation to track down his family's killer. Along the way, Bird finds himself dragged into gang turf wars, frozen out of the FBI's investigation, and in the arms of a new lover. This case is more enjoyable, but not necessarily “realistic”.

This book contained little things that I felt were truly unrealistic. At one point, the police act on Bird's tip without any real question or further proof. Quick friendships with gang leads, welcoming into the FBI investigation, even if informally, and friends who would drop anything to fly to where you are and wreak havoc is a bit.. far-fetched for me.

All-in-all, I enjoyed this book and will revisited the series at some point in the future.

Charlie Parker lost his wife and daughter by the hand of a killer. He took away their skins and insides and he's not finish with toying with Parker. Not only is he tryinh to find the killer but also have to solve the dissapearance of a woman.

Great suspense thriller. The author describs every little detail, some gory. I enjoyed it very much.

3.5 stars. This is a grisly, gritty crime novel that enjoyed quite a bit. The writing was good, I liked the main character and the different settings where the story took place. I did think that the plot became convoluted and that the pacing was off. Both of these things made the story lose momentum for me at times.

Overall, I recommend this book to people who like crime novels and don't mind reading gruesome details of murders. I plan to continue on with the Charlie Parker series.

I'd read three other books by this author: 2 for the YA market that were very good, and a fantasy called The Book of Lost Things which I liked very much. So, I thought, hey, why not try out the author's series of gritty crime novels featuring protagonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, an ex-cop haunted by the brutal killings of his wife and child. It's well-written stuff but man, oh, man, was it dark. And well, I read the whole thing, but not in a rush. I wasn't that much into it and I wouldn't classify it as a page-turner. The ending had some nice twists and was exciting enough but... I expect more of page-turner for crime stories.