N O V E L S N O C T U R N E S R E V I E W S UK US CHAPTER AND VERSE MAGAZINE This is the sixth book written by Dubliner John Connolly, the Irish Times journalist, whose books just get better and better. Nocturnes is a collection of short stories and two novellas, one of which - entitled 'The Reflecting Eye' - features Charlie Parker, the loveable yet deeply-troubled protagonist and private detective, in Connolly's crime fiction books. 'The Reflecting Eye' made me laugh, cry, feel loved and feel lonely, all at the same time. Connolly is an excellent storyteller, who combines his own unique voice with a wonderful sense of humour; his one-liners will have the reader laughing long after the book has been closed. These supernatural tales are beautifully written, with not a single bad story among them. So draw the curtains, batten down the hatches and prepare to feel the fear. This book will have the reader turning the pages long into the night. Quite simply, Connolly is a literary genius." THE IRISH TIMES The tone lies somewhere between Stephen King's conversational style and Poe's more formal precision, but while there are crimes to be solved, and all the stories contain gothic tropes (dæmons; witches; nature as an evil neutered by nurture), the title hints at a form older than the crime or gothic genres. These are fairytales, although they have little in common with the sanitised versions offered by Charles Perrault or the Brothers Grimm. They belong to an earlier age, when such tales were raw in tooth and claw and the Big Bad Wolf was a sexual threat to young innocents. All in all, an inventive, intriguing collection.    —Declan Burke THE HERALD (Glasgow) Sometimes we read horror stories for a glimpse of the strange, a glimmer of the uncanny. And sometimes we just want to hear the author go boo. Of the two, it's easier to say boo. John Connolly is rather good at it.    —Teddy Jamieson THE MANX INDEPENDENT (Isle of Man) After four haunting novels featuring private detective Charlie Parker and the stand-alone Bad Men, which veered even closer to the world of the supernatural, Connolly finally pulls back the drapes and enters the world of darkness, previously only glimpsed at in his beautiful prose. Connolly's skill is to effortlessly weave hints of the supernatural into the gritty realism of gangsters and serial killers and he shows equal mastery when dealing with a collection of macabre short stories and novellas which include nods to the likes of Lovecraft and Stephen King.... For Connolly's fans, rest assured he remains on top form. For those yet to discover his writing, a wonderful introduction.    —John Quirk GOLD COAST BULLETIN (Australia) Best known for his dark crime thrillers Every Dead Thing, The Killing Kind, Dark Hollow and Bad Men, Connolly's latest effort is a series of stunning short stories. Nocturnes offers a dozen macabre and supernatural tales in which Connolly exposes our deepest fears. Children go missing, lovers are lost, creatures emerge from below the ground and demons lurk in the shadows as Connolly, clearly having the time of his life, does his best to scare the wits out of his readers. TIME OUT (London) The thrillers of John Connolly have always included a large element of ghost-mongering and vision-quest alongside their serial killers, torturers and assassins; his first collection of short stories, Nocturnes, is a series of riffs on good old-fashioned ghost and horror themes and none the worse for that. Connolly writes about darkness and viciousness with an urbane intelligence that makes these stories at once terrifying and delightful.    —Roz Kaveney LINCOLNSHIRE ECHO "Nocturnes has allowed the author's imagination free reign to delve into our darkest fears and to play on anxieties that have their root in childhood and adolescence as well as our adult insecurities. Directly paying homage to previous masters of the genre in The Ritual of The Bones, casting Bierce, James, Dickens, Burrage, Poe and Lovecraft as school masters, it is clear where the writer's influences have come from and the effect he intends his tales to have on readers. And without question he achieves it. With folk tales including monsters that linger in your mind, leaving you locking your doors and windows tightly, and the unsettling tales that leave you questioning your perception of the people and the world around you, Nocturnes is delightfully discomfiting.... Lock your doors, turn down the lights and let yourself be led through the unnerving and unearthly chambers of Connolly's imagination that could only be one step away from your reality." THE DAILY MIRROR "Connolly shows off his horror-writing versatility with this collection of stories in different styles. It covers everything from cancerous contagion in Colorado to mad vicars in country churches and the rituals of the public school system. Think Edgar Allan Poe's mysteries for the shorter stories, while Connolly's individuality shines through in longer tales. There's the odd dud. But God help you when he gets it right." THE INDEPENDENT ONLINE "...his prose is light and full of charm, and he often succeeds in opening the connecting door between his tales and their earlier counterparts, taking the reader back to a darker, yet strangely more innocent time....Spookier than mere pastiche, meatier than pure pulp, Nocturnes hits exactly the right note in reinventing the golden age of ghost stories." SIGLA MAGAZINE "The stories, and particularly the novellas are very filmic ('The Cancer Cowboy Rides' reads like an episode of The X-Files), and it's this visual execution that makes the stories so readable - and so good..." Read a Q & A. Read an article John wrote about folk tales and the supernatural... Support an independent bookstore, or buy online from Amazon.com, or Amazon.co.uk.