Thriller: John Connolly writes like an angel, but about evil men and their diabolical deeds. "In 1693, the settlers on the small Maine island of Sanctuary were betrayed to their enemies and slaughtered.
Since then, the island has known three hundred years of peace. Until now" - so runs the blurb on the cover of Bad Men, giving the reader merely a hint of the blood and carnage about to unfold.
The plot is simple in itself: woman betrays crooked and dangerous husband and flees to a remote island off Maine with her son and a considerable sum of stolen money. Husband stews in gaol, plotting his escape and the hunt for the loot. In Connolly's hands this storyline becomes a voyage of mystery and intrigue, betrayal, revenge and not a little bloodshed.
I stopped counting the bodies after 10. The characters are drawn with a painstaking eye for detail: speech pattern, physical description, personal habits and mannerisms (often disgusting). The landscapes are set out so you feel you know the terrain, can even smell the air. And long before Connolly's bad men come calling you sense the menace:
Moloch dreams. In the darkness of a Virginia prison cell, he stirs like an old demon goaded by memories of its lost humanity. The dream presses upon him once more, the First Dream, for in it lies his beginning, and his end.
If you didn't find out later, with this you'd almost believe Moloch could be a half- decent guy. But Moloch is a bank robber, extortionist and murderer who spends long hours incarcerated and dreaming of revenge. Finally escaping (don't ask how; it's X-rated) he sets off in search of his estranged and double-crossing wife, surrounding himself with men like Willard, young and blond-haired with a pretty face, who keeps chunks of human flesh in his fridge and would cut your throat for thruppence. And Tell, who shoots an Arab for the crime of talking too loud into a cellphone. And Dexter and Shepherd and Braun, all in it for the thrill of the chase and the chance of a cut in the spoils.
God help anyone who tries to stop them. But in their way is one Melancholy Joe, a freak of a man at seven feet, two inches and 260lbs and now a sort of chief of police on Sanctuary island. Unknown to Melancholy Joe, the lonely woman he's taken a fancy to is Moloch's runaway bride. By this unfortunate twist of fate, the giant becomes one of the main difficulties Moloch and his murderous gang must overcome.
Written with some style and by a man completely at ease with his work, Bad Men is probably John Connolly's best novel yet. It is five-star chill with enough menace to keep the pages turning well into the wee small hours. But certainly not for the faint-hearted.
Paul Carson is a medical doctor and novelist. His most recent novel, Final Duty, is now out in paperback
Bad Men By John Connolly, Hodder & Stoughton, 406pp, £14.99