Oh Charlie, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
You are without doubt my favourite fictional detective. As far as I am concerned you have it
all.
You are troubled. You
have a trouble in your nature that seeps between the bones; that flows through
the blood vessels and winds its way around DNA.
You are the fresh form of an old favourite. The outline, so beautifully crafted by
Raymond Chandler, has evolved into someone that makes our hearts break. Like all the best fictional detectives, just
as you are troubled, you carry sadness: a sadness that fuels rather than
destroys. Your losses have been great,
your burden heavy, and you carry that with you in every novel, on every page,
and it makes us love you all the more.
However, despite, or in spite of that troubled soul, you
carry nobility. Burning within that
darkness is a light of righteousness. It
is the flicker of a candle flame, but it burns fiercely, and we are aware that
in your adventures there is a higher purpose.
You are the opposite of the evil you fight, even if you don’t always
recognise it in yourself. We will follow
you, Charlie. We will follow you to hell
and back, willing you always to return.
We will clutch our books tightly with whitened knuckles; we will hold
our breath and sit on the edge of our sofas and beds whispering silent
incantations, begging Mr Connolly, ‘Don’t let him die.’
We love you Charlie, because you cross the line. In fact, you have blurred the lines and
broken the rules. The very nature of
your investigations often run against the very nature of the true detective novel. The supernatural invades; it licks the edges
of the pages; it stares us in the face; it is a ‘presence’ in every sense of
the word, but it NEVER disappoints; it
NEVER lets us down, and it ALWAYS gives us more, more than we even knew we
wanted.
I must be honest Charlie, it is not you alone we love. The
characters you surround yourself with are as enticing and attractive as you
are. The monsters that you battle are
unapologetically evil, and we love that.
It forces you to be a hero in the truest sense of the word: a disguised
and troubled white knight. The loyalty
that you evoke in others, inspires that loyalty in us. As they recognise your importance, so do we:
it shines because of the way they look at you.
This is also true of the fear
that you inspire in your enemies. We
thrive on the way you treat those who fall foul of your code of conduct. We know that they will be dealt with, and we
love the anticipation of their downfall. And just as we worry that with each turning
of the page you may be written out of our lives, so too do we fear that Angel
or Louis may be sacrificed for the greater good.
Charlie Parker, I have loved you since I read the first pages
of ‘Every Dead Thing’. The joy of the
crime novel has been mine since childhood.
Nancy Drew was my staple at 12. One of the best memories of my English degree
was the term we studied detective fiction.’ (As an aside, it is also where I
was introduced to Paul Auster, and CSI in the same lecture.) I won’t lie,
Charlie, I’ve followed Lincoln Rhyme, Alex Cross and Dave Robicheaux with pleasure. You should know that while Robicheaux came
close, no one has created a detective that makes my blood boil with frustration
because it is impossible for me to sit down at a bar and have a drink them …until
you. I could weep at the unfairness that you are a figment of someone’s
imagination. I could cry a river of jealousy
that it was someone ELSE’s imagination that created you. I would give my soul to write a detective
such as you.
And so, now it is time for the next instalment. ‘A Game of Ghosts’ I am ready.
Author’s Notes
This is my ode to the character Charlie Parker created by the
wonderful John Connolly (I can say that because I have met him in person,
twice!) These are very much my views,
and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing them here, and sharing them with you. Finally, while I have repeatedly used ‘we’ in
this ode, I feel it is only fair to say that I do not speak for all Parker fans
everywhere, but really…how could they possibly disagree?
No comments
Post a Comment