The black heart (novel)
The black heart is the debut novel by the Irish writer John Connolly , which was published in 1999 under the original title Every Dead Thing and in 2000 as a German edition by Ullstein-Verlag. The black heart marks the beginning of the Charles “Bird” Parker series.
Blurb
New York detective Parker picked the wrong night to get drunk in his favorite bar. At home, an intruder killed his wife and young daughter and arranged the corpses similar to a Pietà . Parker quits that same night. He has only one goal left: to find the demon who destroyed his life.
content
The novel is set in 1996. When policeman Charles Parker comes home drunk, he discovers the bodies of his wife and daughter who have been skinned alive by an unknown perpetrator. Their skin and literally their faces have been peeled off. The act resembles a ritual murder , as the murdered were also draped with the body of Jesus Christ like a representation of Mary. Parker is only guided by thoughts of revenge and quits his service on the spot. The most likely culprit is the so-called “traveling man”, who is driven by the delusion of using the corpses to recreate certain scenes from historical anatomy books. His motif is the "mortality of humanity", which he would like to represent in a pathologically artistic way, as the psychologist Rachel Wolfe explains. Parker needs a few months to process what has been experienced to some extent. He is watched by the serial killer, who commits further murders in order to stay in touch with him. As the FBI investigation comes to nothing, Parker becomes a private investigator in order to pursue his plan to hunt down the "Driving Man". In the search for the perpetrator, he is supported by his two friends Angel and Louis. He is also hired by Isobel Barton, a friend of one of his acquaintances, to investigate the case of Catharine Demeter, who has been reported missing. A trail leads him to the southern United States, to Haven, Catharine's hometown. Here he comes into contact with a local mafia family. The godfather's son, Sonny Ferrera, has a sadistic disposition and hosts perverted snuff events in the area , at which minors are cruelly killed for his entertainment. Parker finds out that Sonny is regularly being supplied by a psychopathic couple. In a preliminary showdown, everyone involved is killed. Shortly before his violent end, Sonny Ferrera, the boss of the "child killer mafia", informed him that he was, among other things, connected to the "traveling man". The private investigator tries to find out where the killer's series of murders began and tracks him down in the swamps of Louisiana . In New Orleans , a voodoo miracle healer tells him the legend of the "traveling man". The story leads into a local gangster war and ends in the final showdown.
Reviews
Michael Drewniok describes the novel as “ crazy mass butchers step on their feet ”. The author tries to outdo the usual cliché image of a mad murderer with excessive brutality and excessive mass slaughter. In the book The Black Heart , two storylines run parallel. The secondary section deals with the events around the pedophile Sonny Ferrera, which end in a massacre and thus abruptly let the arc of tension drop. Then the main story about the “ traveling man ” starts again, from which certain illogical elements arise. The antagonist, who has demonic traits, usually only appears in portions in order to be able to further increase the horror. The backdrop of the southern states is not portrayed with the usual romanticizing clichés as in In the Heat of the Night , but in a very idiosyncratic way. The black heart, with its depiction of torture methods and disfigured corpses, is one of the works of harder tension literature. The author gives the figure of the serial killer, already heavily worn in crime fiction, through "credibility" and "originality". Connolly uses a certain irony here. The murderer is on the one hand the "harmless neighbor next door", but on the other hand lives in the shadowy world of a brutal and unscrupulous monster. The Charlie “Bird” Parker series even draws its unique selling point from this. The depictions of violence would not slide into the violent pornography as in Edward Lee or Richard Laymon , but underpin the atmospheric density of the narrative. The typical southern clichés are largely dispensed with, but Connolly is able to “put the essence of evil on paper ” and get the reader out of the “ everyday comfort zone ”. For example, a permanent feeling of “feeling followed ” would be created. On the other hand, the overall composition of the work is problematic, since the two storylines do not run parallel. Connolly, a Catholic Irishman, uses mainly religious motifs such as guilt , atonement , forgiveness and vengeance in The Black Heart .
expenditure
- John Connolly: The Black Heart, A Charlie Parker Thriller, OT “Every Dead Thing”, Ullstein-Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3548251509
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e “Literally losing face”, Michael Drewniok in crime couch
- ↑ a b c d e f Reviews on John Connolly: The black heart on Lovelybooks
- ↑ Review on Lovelybooks
Web links
- official website (English)
- The black heart at Buchwurm (German)