The Book of Lost Things is a fantastic thriller. The film rights have also been sold.
Review
"* 'Seldom has a thriller writer been so adept at turning the screw yet further and evoking a sense of awful dread among his landscapes and tormented characters. Colourful but visceral grand guignol, and definitely not to be read at night.' - Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian on The Black Angel * 'Connolly has made a name for himself specialising in darkness, and THE BLACK ANGEL is no exception. Five Star.' - Daily Mirror on The Black Angel * 'Connolly has virtually no match when it comes to chilling his readers.' - Daily Express on The Black Angel * 'There is a precision to the horrors... that make them one of the few sequences to have found anything interesting to say about serial killers since Thomas Harris.' - Independent on The Black Angel"
A child's nightmare odyssey through an alternate world inspired by the darkest aspects of fairy tales.The Irish thriller-writer (The Black Angel, 2005, etc.) breaks new ground with this extravagant fantasy. Twelve-year-old David is a Londoner who has inherited his mother's love of myths and fairy tales; when she dies of an unnamed disease, he takes her loss hard. And it gets worse. His father falls for Rose, the administrator of his mother's hospice; she bears him a son, Georgie. David dislikes them both. When war breaks out (it's 1939), they move to Rose's house outside London. David's bedroom is haunted by a notorious trickster, the Crooked Man, known for stealing children. When he hears his mother's voice calling for help, he wriggles through a hole in the brickwork and finds himself in a forest. Right away, he spots two corpses. One belongs to a German aviator, the other to an animal wearing clothes. Luckily, the first living human he meets is the well-disposed Woodsman. He tells David the animal was a Loup, half-wolf, half-human; the mother of the first Loup, Leroi, was Little Red Riding Hood. (Be prepared for other perverse fairy-tale variants.) Leroi is plotting to displace the feeble old king; his chief adversary is the Crooked Man. The only good news is that the king's greatest resource, the Book of Lost Things, may show David the way home. So man and boy begin their journey to the castle. Dangers abound. Wolves and Loups are on their trail. Evil trolls guard a bridge across a canyon, while fanged harpies cruise below. The Woodsman is chased off by wolves, and David must use all his smarts to avoid various grisly ends. There's a nod to his coming-of-age, but graphic violence is the come-on, enough to sate the most bloodthirsty appetite. Connolly doesn't know when to stop-by the end, the punch-drunk reader is past caring about the ultimate winner or David's fate.A robust storyteller loses his way. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
'Once upon a time, there was a boy who lost his mother !' As twelve-year-old David takes refuge from his grief in the myths and fairytales so beloved of his dead mother, he finds the real world and the fantasy world begin to blend. That is when bad things start to happen. That is when the Crooked Man comes. And David is violently propelled into a land populated by heroes, wolves and monsters in his quest to find the legendary Book of Lost Things.
About the Author
John Connolly was born in Dublin in 1968. His debut - EVERY DEAD THING - swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He is the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award.
Product details
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Hardcover: 320 pages
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Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd (7 Sep 2006)
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Language English
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ISBN-10: 0340899468
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ISBN-13: 978-0340899465
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Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 3.2 cm
