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    A Song of Shadows: A Charlie Parker Thriller
    A Song of Shadows: A Charlie Parker Thriller
    A Song of Shadows: A Charlie Parker Thriller
    Ebook518 pages8 hours

    A Song of Shadows: A Charlie Parker Thriller

    By John Connolly

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Still recovering from his life-threatening wounds, private detective Charlie Parker investigates a case that has its origins in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II in this “all-out thrill ride” (Suspense Magazine).

    Parker has retreated to the small Maine town of Boreas to regain his strength. There he befriends a widow named Ruth Winter and her young daughter, Amanda. But Ruth has her secrets. Old atrocities are about to be unearthed, and old sinners will kill to hide their sins. Now Parker is about to risk his life to defend a woman he barely knows, one who fears him almost as much as she fears those who are coming for her.

    His enemies believe him to be vulnerable. Fearful. Solitary.

    But they are wrong. Parker is far from afraid, and far from alone.

    For something is emerging from the shadows…
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAtria/Emily Bestler Books
    Release dateSep 29, 2015
    ISBN9781501118319
    Author

    John Connolly

    John Connolly is the author of the #1 internationally bestselling Charlie Parker thrillers series, the supernatural collection Nocturnes, the Samuel Johnson Trilogy for younger readers, and (with Jennifer Ridyard) the Chronicles of the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland. For more information, see his website at JohnConnollyBooks.com, or follow him on Twitter @JConnollyBooks.

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    Reviews for A Song of Shadows

    4.5/5

    40 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Parker has changed. The series feels like it’s turning in a new direction and I’m looking forward to see where it’s going.
    • 4/5
      This is the 13th Charlie Parker book, but it is only the second one that I've read. I also read "The Wolf in Winter", the 12th book in the series. I'm sure that I would have benefited from having read more of the series, but I thought that this book worked fine as a standalone. Parker has rented a beach house in a small Maine town while he recuperates from serious injuries. However the private detective can't keep from getting involved in a mystery involving a dead body on the beach, a missing boy, a sadistic assassin, war criminals, neo Natzis and Parker's mostly invisible daughter (always referred to as "my dead daughter", which I found somewhat disconcerting). Parker also has a living six year old daughter Samantha who lives with her mother but visits him in Maine. I'm sure that more will be learned about Samantha in future books.I like Parker and I enjoyed this complex story with a hint of the supernatural. The banter of Parker's colleagues was amusing, and I don't usually like banter. These books have a lighter touch than some humorless crime series. I may have appreciated the banter more because the narrator of the audio book, Jeff Harding, was very good.I received a free copy of the e-book from the publisher, however I wound up borrowing and listening to the audiobook from the library.
    • 4/5
      Parker has changed. The series feels like it’s turning in a new direction and I’m looking forward to see where it’s going.
    • 3/5
      I have two gripes about this book. The first is that the plot is bogged down by pointless dialogue and second, the people in the story are too elderly to do what they do.World War 2 was a long time ago and the people who were old enough to have been either prisoner or captor in the death camps are getting awfully old. Some characters in this story are in their mid-90s. My father's family are long lived people, often reaching into their 90s in pretty good health. Generally speaking, though, they could not manage to do what Mr. Connolly's characters do. Humans get frail as they age and their eyes and hearing get weaker, and their ability to plot murders and, frankly, their interest in plotting anything, wanes. The whole Nazi plot does not ring true.Then there is the pointless dialogue. I skipped page after page of people talking over coffee, or lunch, or drinks. What for?I received an electronic review copy of "A Song of Shadows: A Charlie Parker Thriller" by John Connolly (Atria) through NetGalley.com. It is book 13 in the series.
    • 5/5
      Charlie Parker is back, worn and torn, but in one piece. He has come to Boreas, Maine to recuperate from a near death attack in his last book. He just wants to heal, but life has something else in mind for Charlie. Charlie Parker is very gifted detective in more ways than one; Charlie has insights that normal humans do have have into the spirit world.Mysterious happenings abound in this small seaside town and the town’s people include Charlie in those mysteries even though they have taken him in as one of their own. The author, John Connolly, is a master at setting up a mystery with twists, turns, and paranormal elements; this book is one of his best.Charlie has a 6-year-old daughter, Sam; Sam communicates with her dead half sister. His neighbor, Ruth Winters and her daughter Amanda are newly arrived in town, and Ruth has secrets; secrets that require warnings from a mysterious person and he is watching everything. A dead body has washed a shore, was it murder or suicide, a family is killed in their home; their teenage son is missing. Two others in Florida are killed in terrible ways, how are they involved in these mysteries. There are strangers watching, and their intent is evil. How will Mr. Connolly connect all the dots; never fear he has it all in hand as he brings all the dots and plots together to form a cohesive tale of heinous Nazi war crimes and criminals, murder, evil, families torn apart, ghosts/spirits, death and justice. When I discovered the identity of the Jigsaw Man I was floored; I couldn’t believe it. Mr. Connolly created so many twists and turns; the plots just keep coming and your attention will never lag. I was gripped from the first page to the last. This book kept me guessing and I was very wrong in my conclusions.Mr. Connolly created a very enjoyable read you will not want to put down. I highly recommend this book to anyone that likes a well-written crime mystery with paranormal elements.I received this book from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an honest review.
    • 5/5
      Grievously wounded, private detective Charlie Parker investigates a case that has its origins in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War.

      Broken, but undeterred, private detective Charlie Parker faces the darkest of dark forces in a case with its roots in the second world war, and a concentration camp unlike any other . . .

      Recovering from a near-fatal shooting and tormented by memories of a world beyond this one, Parker has retreated to the small Maine town of Boreas to recover. There he befriends a widow named Ruth Winter and her young daughter, Amanda. But Ruth has her secrets. She is hiding from the past, and the forces that threaten her have their origins in the Second World War, in a town called Lubko and a concentration camp unlike any other. Old atrocities are about to be unearthed, and old sinners will kill to hide their sins. Now Parker is about to risk his life to defend a woman he barely knows, one who fears him almost as much as she fears those who are coming for her.

      His enemies believe him to be vulnerable. Fearful. Solitary.

      But they are wrong. Parker is far from afraid, and far from alone.

      For something is emerging from the shadows . . .
    • 5/5
      Song of Shadows by John Connelly is a 2015 Atria publication. I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. I kept putting this one off until I was more in the mood for a little supernatural tone with my detective stories, and there's no better time than in the month of October for a good ghost story. So, I settled in on a dark and stormy night, hoping Charlie was still the guy I have come to know and love. I have to say, this story was absolutely incredible. A small community in Maine with a large German community is where Charlie has moved temporarily in order to continue his long physical, mental and emotional healing. It's just his luck that a couple of Nazi war criminals have recently made headlines, and a body has washed up on the shore, a case that is all but screaming at Charlie to get involved. It seems, for Charlie at least, there is no rest for the weary. Charlie's daughter, Sam, is staying with him for a while, and reveals her own talent for seeing dead people, and maybe a little more than that, which has Charlie worried sick. But, thankfully, he has Rachel, and his old friends Angel and Louis are there to watch his back. This story is sort of like a 'time out' for Charlie, who is outside of his usual elements here, and is hampered by his injuries. The plot is intricate and there were some rather long winded passages here and there concerning the history of the town, the war, and the reminder that some people who committed atrocities during world war two managed to escape justice, and have been living quite comfortably to boot. There were several heart stopping twist along the way with some shocking developments I never saw coming. I was completely immersed in the story involving war crimes and the puzzling mystery behind why certain people were now being targeted. But, the storyline with Sam and her 'dead sister' was one that literally had the hair standing up on the back of my neck and chills running down my spine! The dark and sinister undertones here are going to have you on the very edge of your seat. One thing about long running series is that the stories go through peaks and valleys, with some installments either falling flat or just barely managing to break even, while others are simply mind blowing. With thirteen books in a this series, I would say Charlie was due to take stumble, especially after the climatic conclusion of book twelve. But, this was one of the best of the lot, in my opinion. The plot was crisp and fresh, very clever, intense and sharp, offset by some humor and poignancy. I highly recommend this book for fans of this series for sure, but even if you haven't followed the series, you can still enjoy the detective story is this one and I know once you get a taste of Charlie's otherworldly life you will want to know more. Just be sure not read it alone on a dark and stormy night! 4.5 stars
    • 5/5
      This book takes place a few months after Wolf in Winter ends. Charlie is recouperating from his near death experience. His friends found him a home in a small town in Maine close to the hospital where he is doing his physical therapy.A single mom moves into the house next door. Charlie tries to keep his distance but feels that there is something amiss with this new family. When a dead body washes up on the beach and his neighbor starts acting stranger than normal Charlie doesn't seem to be able to help himself and finds himself looking into the investigation.If you have an interest in World War 2, Nazi Germany, and Nazi war fugitives than this Charlie Parker book will have you hooked and turning pages. The information is plentiful and very interesting I think Connolly really put some research into this one. I even learned some things I didn't know or wasn't familiar with that I am now going to have to look into. I am totally in love with this spooky, dark and violent series I can't put them down. Charlies friends Louis and Angel are also some of the best characters I've ever read, I love them. I want to be friends with them and how many contract killers can you say that about? The ending was completely satisfying and leaves me wanting more but not in a cliff hanger way, plus there is a new mystery brewing. Not only can we continue to wonder what Charlie is -because he does seem like an avenging angel...but now we are starting to see more glimpses into his daughter and she has some things going on that even Charlie doesn't understand.
    • 4/5
      A Song of Shadows by John Connolly is the newest in the fine line of supernatural serial murder mysteries involving one of the better characters in novels today; Charlie Parker."...And his eyes...Had she been on more friendly terms with Bobby Soames, they might well have found common ground in their impression of Parker. She had only ever seen pictures of him before he arrived, but she wondered if his eyes had always been so haunted, and so haunting. They were the eyes of someone who had witnessed events beyond the comprehension of others, and perhaps even his own. She knew that his heart had stopped three times after the shooting, and he had been resuscitated on each occasion. Perhaps the victim of such traumas lost a little of himself every time, and left part of his being behind in the darkness. Or perhaps he brought something of the darkness back with him..."Charlie Parker was ambushed in his home, riddled by shotgun, and left to die. And that is what he did. He died, three times, and three times he came back. Now he has moved to a sleepy little coastal town named Boreas, where everyone knows everyone nothing ever happens. That is until a dead body is brought in by the tide. Now Parker is back. He doesn't want to be, all he wants to do is get better, but he can't shake the feeling that there is much more to this dead body than a suicide. Something dark and evil."...I've been trying to figure out all evening why, when I looked at Steiger, there was something familiar about him. I just now remembered what it was: his face reminds me of one of Galton's composites, as if what was wrong with him inside had seeped through his pores and caused his skull to mutate.''Your job would be a whole lot easier if you could tell the bad folk by the way they looked,' said Angel. 'Or you could just end up putting behind bars a whole lot of ugly people who'd never done anyone any harm, and leave a bunch of beautiful people with dead souls free to walk the streets.'They stood to leave.'Galton had it all wrong,' said Walsh. 'The worst of them, the really foul ones, they hide their badness deep inside. They look just like average Joes and Janes, but underneath they're rotten right down to the core, and we don't find out about them until it's too late..."Parker digs into the mystery of the small town of Boreas and unearths a past as dark and deep as the horrors of a forgotten Nazi Concentration Camp. Now that past is coming back and threatening the innocents around him. With the help of hired killers, Louis and Angel, Parker steps back into the fray. But will it be enough to save the lives and will it put at risk his lone remaining child.Charlie Parker is a contradiction. A father who is haunted by his murdered daughter and fearful of his living one. A husband who has buried one murdered wife and left by the other. His friends fear and love him and their devotion to the Detective is as deep as his is to them. Together they have been through battles that others would not have survived. In Parker, Connolly has created the ultimate flawed hero. He kills. He murders and he goes up against forces that are beyond humanity. But he goes on.What makes the Parker series so enjoyable is the relationships between Parker and all the other characters. Connolly infuses his mysteries with characters that breathe and move on their own. They are not just window dressing and props for the setting as the main character drives the novel. A Charlie Parker novel is not your normal murder mystery. It is not your run of the mill ghost story. It is an intense and deeply detailed hybrid. Each novel stands on its own but the series flows. If you have never read a Charlie Parker you are missing out, but try as you can to start with the earlier ones.A terrific read!
    • 3/5
      This is the only heavily racist book I have come across by this author. It is very disappointing for having read more than ten of his parker series, this is a let down. In mentioning war crimes he seems to have forgotten about the us, uk, france, spain, holland, basically all of european and American soldiers have killed millions over the years, and not a single mention of these killings.
    • 5/5
      Now Available in the U.S.!

      I loved this book!

      Charlie Parker is recovering from near fatal injuries and as such, is reflecting on his life and the decisions he has made. Rehabilitating at a house in Boreas, Maine he becomes interested in a body that washes up at a nearby beach and so begins this story which I'll call Charlie and the Nazis.

      The portions of the book that I loved best, (other than the always entertaining Angel, Louis and Fulci Brothers), were the parts regarding Charlie's daughters. Series followers are already familiar with Jennifer and Sam but this book reveals that Sam has a secret, a dangerous one, and I cannot wait to find out more about where it comes from and how it is to be used. Jennifer made a promise to Charlie in "The Wolf in Winter" and in this volume, she keeps her promise. Charlie's girls hold sway over his emotions and I think Connolly's writing shines brightest when dealing with Parker's feelings toward them.

      In short, this is yet another hit from Mr. Connolly. We've got a damaged Charlie, two daughters, Nazis, Nazi hunters, concentration camp survivors and all the old standbys including Cambion and The Collector. Everything you love about this series is here, plus some.

      A Song of Shadows receives my highest recommendation. To fans of truly excellent writing, crime thrillers, mysteries and horror, go get yourself some new Charlie Parker at the end of this month! You won't regret it. (Available in the U.S. September 29, 2015.)

      *I received a free e-ARC of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. *
    • 4/5
      Song of Shadows, Michael Connelly, author, Jeff Harding, narratorA small town in Maine, Boreas, recently acquired some new residents on their beachfront. The Parkers and the Winters are new neighbors. Ruth Winters is a single mom with a young daughter, Amanda. They both used to live with Ruth’s mother, Isha, but they had some kind of a falling out and moved away from Pirna, where Isha still lived. Charlie Parker is divorced. His young daughter, Samantha, visits him. He had recently sustained devastating injuries and had moved, temporarily, to this small town to recuperate. Through the children, they make a brief, somewhat troubled acquaintance. When the body of a man washes up on the beach, not far from their homes, an investigation ensues which draws both of them into its snare with devastating consequences.What seems to begin as a strange and confusing murder mystery, soon resolves itself into an intense effort to find Nazi war criminals. Helped by pro-Nazi sympathizers, after the war, these former Nazis have hidden in plain sight in the United States for decades. With their identities and even their physical appearance altered, they remained undiscovered, living far different, often upstanding lives. Soon, even they forgot who they really were, but their hateful deeds could never be forgotten or dismissed, especially by those who continued to search for them.As more and more bodies turned up, seemingly unrelated to each other, in a place where murder rarely occurred, investigators began to wonder if these murders were not random acts at all, but were perhaps all connected by some thread that might link the past with the present. As Charlie Parker, a former detective and private investigator, who thwarted his own death miraculously by being resuscitated a number of times after dying, grows more and more involved in the investigation of these bizarre and violent murders, actually witnessing some of them, he also becomes a suspect. More strangely, as the story plays out, he is visited by visions of his own dead daughter, Jennifer, while his remaining living daughter, Samantha, is also experiencing visions of her own. Amanda Winters, as well, is having odd nightmares about Jennifer. The paranormal overlay in the story is not as effective as it could be as it barely seems credible at times, but it makes for an interesting diversion and creates the plot of future books in this series.As the reader is drawn further and further into this tangled mystery, what once seemed confusing and pointless takes shape and grows engaging, drawing the reader further and further into the web of suspense as more and more of the sadistic nature of the murders and the vicious torture that is inflicted on the victims is discovered. They seem to have no rhyme or reason and no relationship to each other, except in their brutality, and also, in the fact that they are occurring in a place that rarely witnessed such crimes. Why the sudden appearance of so much violence in this previously very quiet small town?There are many sub themes in this story. Many of the characters seem to enter and leave without reason, perhaps existing solely to move the story along, however, they all cleverly connect, in the end, as the investigation into Nazi war crimes and criminals broadens. It is a convoluted path and sometimes it gets tedious with details, but the loose ends all really do get tied up neatly. At one point, I thought that each sub theme could have been developed into a good story on its own, but joining them was a clever and creative, monumental task that finally did work out well.The back story about a concentration camp during World War II, where supposedly all sorts of atrocities were carried out, is interesting, although this is fiction and the suppositions presented are not given as fact, but more as representations of what might have occurred during that historic time of cruelty, destruction and genocide. The theme of anti-Semitism is developed well, without becoming cloying; it is rather more informational and seems authentic, representing the tenor of the times in Europe, during the war, and the nature of the beasts who escaped afterwards.
    • 5/5
      A Song of Shadows marks, for me at least, a slight change in the Charlie Parker series. Set a short time after Parker's near fatal encounter with the delightful Selectmen of the town of Prosperous, it sees the wounded Detective renting a relatively isolated house in the small community of Boreas, in order to be close to the rehabilitation centre that is aiding his recovery, as well as avoiding the eventual return to the home in Scarborough where he nearly breathed his last. His presence in town causes a minor stir, something that would only be natural given the chaos which has been known to trail him like a bad smell. This tale is no different, with a body washing up on shore close to his home, a mysteriously guarded woman and her daughter who move in next door and the seemingly random investigation into the murder of a family and the disappearance of their teenage son. Tied in with all of this is an ongoing hunt for Nazi war criminals in a community of largely German descent, all of which tels you that you are in for one hell of a tale, the familiar elements of otherworldliness taking it beyond your normal thriller novel.What makes this story different is the voice. It is most definitely inimitably John Connolly's style, and the interactions between Parker, Louis & Angel the returning cast of characters such as Ross, Walsh and the Fulci Brothers, remain as witty and well observed as always. Being injured has done nothing to alter Parker's sarcastic and somewhat matter of fact tone, and his contact with the townsfolk of Boreas follows in much the same vane. However, there is a darker turn in Parker's character, the impact of his experiences in A Wolf In Winter, as well as a few revelations about people who are much closer to home that cause him great concern and a clearer understanding of his place in the unfolding chaos. The biggest change? While normally written in first person point of view, Parker's scenes in A Song of Shadows, remain third person observations.For me, this was a genius decision, and I feel that it gives strength to the idea of Parker's recovery. His body is on the mend and yet still betraying him, and while he would normally be seen throwing himself into the investigation, we are now observing Parker holding back, not strong enough to take the role he would normally instinctively play, and perhaps on some level, no longer certain that he still wants to. The use of third person to follow Parker ultimately leads us, as the reader, on a more objective journey as we watch Parker decide whether or not he has any part left to play in his world as an investigator, whether his heart is still in it.For a Charlie Parker novel, this stepping back is an unusual feeling, and not since The Reapers have we not really been privvy to his every thought and the progression of an investigation. Parker is in the middle of this mystery and yet he is not. He is using himself as bait, and yet remaining a casual observer on the edge of the action. We do not hear his thoughts directly. It is not I, it is he. Is this a sign of things to come, a hint that Parker is merely a player and not the key to the puzzle? Will he too remain on the periphery or will we be allowed back into his head again? Who knows.The one thing that is abundantly clear, is that by the end Parker's mind is back on top form, his intuitive nature and ability to understand on another level fully intact and his desire to right the wrongs of people like the Backers and the Believers as strong as ever. But even at the end, no matter how much Parker thinks he has taken control, we know the truth. That it was never his choice. His future is pre-destined and everything in his life, every choice, both his own and those made for him by people such as The Travelling Man, are leading him down a path that cannot be altered. You know that he won't go quietly, and his friends will be along for the ride. I will most certainly be joining them as I cannot wait to see where the path leads.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Charlie Parker has come to the quiet town of Boreas Maine to recuperate and his arrival has caused quite a stir. His reputation has preceded him and the citizens of Boreas have reason to worry because trouble seems to follow Parker wherever he goes and in many forms including that of his two best friends, Louis and Angel. In fact, it seems almost before he has time to unpack, a body washes ashore not far from his rented cottage, that of a Florida resident and self-avowed Nazi hunter. Parker becomes interested more at first as something to keep his mind occupied while his body heals. Soon though he discovers links between this death and the murder of a family in Maine as well as another Florida murder. It seems the man had come to see Parker’s new neighbour, Ruth Winter just hours before his death. The only thing linking the two seems to be the fact that they are both Jewish - Ruth’s mother had been the lone survivor of a Nazi death camp. Yet, the woman, although clearly terrified, refuses to discuss their conversation. A Song of Shadows is the 13th installment of author John Connolly’s Charlie Parker but, rather than unlucky, it seems to signal some major changes in the series. In terms of storyline, Parker is finally coming to grips with his grief over the murder of his family and seems ready to move on. He transfers his fears for his dead daughter who still haunts him to his living daughter whose burgeoning powers terrify him. In terms of story style, the most obvious difference to those who have been following the Parker series is the fact that, unlike the other books in the series, this one is told in the third person, not the first. We, the reader, see events not as Parker sees them but as they revolve around him, giving us a much clearer picture of Charlie as he was and as he is changing. And there are suggestions that he is shedding his ‘lone wolf’ persona for something more, shall we say, formal. But despite the transitional nature of this entry into the Charlie Parker series, it is still as strong, as well-written and well–plotted as the other books. Connolly may no longer be the only one combining noir with the supernatural but he is still the master!4.5
    • 5/5
      The 13th book in the long running Charlie "bird" Parker dark crime series. The great concern about reading the latest offering from John Connolly is to ask the question...is this a step too far? is it not time that Charlie Parker was put into retirement? does the author not run the risk of simply boring the reader with a character, indeed list of characters that quite simply have no more to say or offer? However let it be said here now that "bird" is alive and tweeting! and A Song of Shadows is another remarkable achievement from an author who seems to go from strength to strength.The central theme of this story is the unveiling and uncovering of Nazi war criminals living in the United States. Bruno Perlmans body is washed ashore in the town of Boreas, his family had been interned at a concentration camp called Lubsko. What is the connection between him and Marcus Baulman, Ruth Winter and her mother Isha? This is an exceptionally well researched novel that probes deep into both America and Germany's attitude to war criminals guilty of genocide and how they should be dealt with (or not) We see a very subdued Charlie Parker who is recuperating in Boreas (having almost died in his previous outing) and at first his contribution to the story is incidental making the acquaintance of Amanda Winter (Ruth's daughter) on one of his early morning exercise outings along the beach. "His presence in Boreas was incongruous, given his reputation. It was like having a grenade rolling around, one you had been assured was defused but hadn't had time to check out for yourself". What is remarkable in this story is that John Connolly has kept our interest in Parker very much alive even thought he has tended to dwell more on the central issue, the unmasking of war criminals and by doing this Parker receives the readers utmost sympathy in his battle back to full health with of course the help and guidance of his personal body guards the mysterious and dangerous Louis and Angel together with a welcome appearance from The Fulcis, and a cameo role for “The Collector of Souls”What sets Connolly’s books apart is the adding of a dark element to Parker’s persona. Parker blames himself for the murder of his wife and daughter Jennifer and you cannot help but feel that he will be relieved when it is time for him to join them. He has many visions and often daughter Jennifer appears before him, is she real or a product of his disturbed mind. In A Song of Shadows we once again meet Parker’s second daughter Sam who appears to have inherited the family trait of talking to the dead and in one memorable scene has an encounter with Jennifer…….“The dead daughter had returned, standing at the end of Sam’s bed, her head bowed so that her hair might conceal the ruin of her face. Sam felt sorry for her, the way she felt sorry for anyone who was forced to endure a form of disability or physical disfigurement. She also understood that it had to be this way for the girl. When she crossed over to this world, she took the last form in which she had inhabited it when she was alive. Her beauty was for another place”So where does Charlie Parker go from here, can we expect a 14th outing? In the final pages surprisingly Parker secures his own future (I will not disclose how but it comes about from an unexpected source) and that for all JC fans can only be great news. This is storytelling of the highest order, intelligent well researched and a joy to read and I highly recommend!

    Book preview

    A Song of Shadows - John Connolly

    AUTHOR INTRODUCTION

    I can’t quite recall when I first became aware of the existence of Hans Breyer, although I do remember when I first caught sight of him: it was on a television screen in a bar somewhere in Maine in June 2014. Breyer, dressed in olive-green prison garb, was being led up some courtroom steps. He was obviously frail, and needed a cane to help him walk. I could see the news report had caught the eye of some of the other patrons of the bar, as they wondered why someone so elderly was being held prisoner, and what he could have done to merit this kind of treatment.

    But I knew. The eighty-nine-year-old Johann Hans Breyer had been charged in Germany with aiding and abetting in the deaths of over two hundred thousand Jews while he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp during World War II, and his appearance before a federal court in Philadelphia was the culmination of a long effort to have him extradited in order that he might face trial for his alleged crimes. The United States had spent years trying to have Breyer stripped of his U.S. citizenship and deported—his mother had been born in the United States, entitling him to American citizenship—but he successfully fought the authorities all the way. He admitted to having been in the SS at Auschwitz, but denied any involvement in atrocities. I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t rape anybody, and I don’t even have a parking ticket here, as he told the Associated Press in 2012. An arrest warrant from the district court in Weiden, Germany had finally undone him.

    On that day in June, Breyer was ordered to be held without bail pending a decision on his extradition. Just over a week later, as a U.S. Magistrate approved the extradition request, it was revealed that Breyer had died hours before in a Philadelphia hospital. He had achieved his goal: to die on American soil.

    By then I was already well into the writing of A Time of Torment. Breyer and those like him had come to fascinate me: old Nazis living out their last years as free men and women, relatively secure in the knowledge that, even if they were accused of war crimes, such accusations would be difficult to prove after so much time had elapsed. I was doubly fascinated, both by the problems—legal and, perhaps, emotional and psychological—of connecting elderly people with crimes they might have committed when they were young and vibrant, and the commitment and effort required on the part of the authorities to continue the hunt for them.

    My research led me into a murky world of pragmatism and moral collapse. I had assumed that the Allies persisted in their efforts to punish the perpetrators of the Holocaust ever since the end of the World War II, but in fact there was little appetite for pursuing Nazi war criminals. Much of Europe lay in ruins, and the manpower and finances required to investigate each case simply weren’t available. More to the point, the end of one war quickly blurred into the start of another: the Cold War. The Western allies found themselves facing down the might of the Soviet Union, and the only individuals with significant knowledge of the new enemy were those who had led death squads during the previous conflict.

    So it was that the British and Americans struck deals with mass murderers in return for information, a stain on the souls of both nations that will not easily be erased. Viktors Arajs, who was directly responsible for about fifty thousand deaths as part of his activities with the SS in Minsk, and another twenty-six thousand in Latvia, claimed that he was protected by the British—a claim that was never denied—and lived peacefully for many years in Oldenburg before he was finally arrested and imprisoned in 1979. The British also recruited Horst Kopkow, the gestapo officer who had been charged with capturing and killing British spies. He ensured the liquidation of three hundred of them, including Violette Szabo, the most famous British female operative, who died at Ravensbrück. The British faked Kopkow’s death after the war, and permitted him to visit his family regularly under the guise of Uncle Peter.

    Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, was helped by the CIA to flee to Argentina. Even as late as the 1970s, CIA reports still referred to him as a valuable source But the most murderous of all was one Major Friedrich Buchardt, whose commando unit cleansed the Lublin and Lodz ghettos, and where Buchardt directly participated in the extermination of Jews. He also later took care of deportations to the Chelmno extermination camp, and is generally regarded as having the blood of more than one hundred thousand people on his hands. Buchardt was employed by MI6 after the war, producing a famous document for the agency on how the Nazis had handled the Russian Problem, before later offering his services to the Americans. A 1950 U.S. counterintelligence report acknowledged that Buchardt was probably in the employment of an American intelligence agency at that time. Buchardt never faced trial for his crimes, nor was he ever even arrested. He passed away peacefully in Nussbach in 1982.

    So this became the backdrop to A Time of Torment, but it is primarily a novel about Charlie Parker’s own slow recovery after the events of A Wolf in Winter, and his realization of his purpose in the world. All good fiction should be about character, and part of the appeal of mystery novels featuring ongoing series characters is that they permit us to return to the same lives year after year, involving us in their struggles and their triumphs, both small and large. The plots of mystery novels don’t vary a great deal—at their most basic, there is a crime, an investigation, a solution—and, in truth, most of us would struggle to remember the cases covered in all but a fraction of the mysteries that we read. What we return for are the characters, with each novel representing a tile in a larger mosaic of those characters’ lives. But as a writer, I’m conscious of trying to create plots that shed light on my central characters that allow us to see them in new ways or bring out aspects of them that were previously concealed or unsuspected. So it is that A Time of Torment contains revelations about at least one major character toward which the series has been building for some time.

    A Time of Torment received some of the best reviews of my career. I wish I could tell you that I knew this would happen when I was writing it, but I’m not that bright. I was just trying very hard to build on A Wolf in Winter, and continue a process of improvement in my work. In an ideal world, each novel would be better than the last, developing new skills learned from the previous book, and avoiding errors committed in the past. The reality, though, is that old errors are simply replaced by a whole set of new errors, and the constant urge to try something different brings with it the risk of failure.

    It is, in the Chinese sense of the word, an interesting way to make a living.

    I

    What would your good do if evil didn’t exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?

    —Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita

    CHAPTER

    I

    Winter dead, spring dying, and summer waiting in the wings.

    Slowly, the town of Boreas was changing: seasonal rentals were being opened and cleaned, the ice-cream parlor was ordering supplies, and the stores and restaurants were gearing up for the advent of the tourists. Just six months earlier, their proprietors had been counting the takings to figure out how close they’d have to cut their cloth to survive. Each year seemed to leave them with a little less in their pockets, and brought the same debate at the end of the season: do we go on or do we sell up? Now those who remained standing were returning to the fray, but even the cautious optimism of previous years was not yet palpable, and there were those who whispered that it was gone forever. The economy might be improving, but Boreas was mired in steady decline: a slow, labored mortality, half-life upon half-life. This was a dying town, a failing ecosystem, but still so many stayed, for where else was there to go?

    Out on Burgess Road, the Sailmaker Inn remained closed, the first time in over seventy years that the grand old dame of Boreas hotels would not be opening its doors to welcome the summer visitors. The decision to put the Sailmaker on the market had been made only the previous week. The owners—the third generation of the Tabor family to operate the inn—had returned from their Carolina winter refuge to prepare the Sailmaker for guests, and some of their seasonal staff were already occupying the residences at the back of the property. The lawn was being mowed, the dust covers taken off the furniture, and then, just like that, the Tabors had looked at their business, decided that they couldn’t take the strain any longer, and announced they wouldn’t be reopening after all. Frank Tabor, a good Catholic, said that making the decision had been akin to going to confession and unburdening himself of his sins. He could now go in peace, and not fret anymore.

    The decision to close the Sailmaker sounded another death knell for the town, a further concrete symbol of its dwindling. The tourists had grown fewer and fewer over the years—and older and older, because there was little here to amuse the young—and more summer homes were being put up for sale, their prices pegged optimistically high at first before time and necessity slowly whittled them down to a more realistic level. Even then Bobby Soames, the local Realtor, could name off the top of his head five houses that had been on the market for two years or more. By now their owners had largely given up on them, and they functioned neither as summer retreats nor actual residences. They were kept alive by a slow trickle of heat in winter, and in summer by the flitting and scuttling of bugs.

    The town was founded by a family of Greeks back at the start of the nineteenth century, although they were long gone by the beginning of the twentieth. Indeed, nobody was entirely sure how they had ended up in this part of Maine to begin with—and the only remaining clue to its origins lay in its name: Boreas, a northern outpost named after the Greek god of winter and the north wind. Was it any wonder, Soames sometimes thought, that its survival as a vacation destination had always been tenuous? They should have just named it Arctic South and had done with it.

    Soames was driving slowly through Boreas on this fine April morning. Everyone drove slowly through Boreas. Its thoroughfares were narrow: even Bay Street, the main drag, was a bitch to negotiate if cars were parked on both curbs, and anyone who’d been in town longer than a wet afternoon learned to push in his side mirrors if he wanted them to be intact when he returned. Meanwhile, the local police liked nothing better than to meet their ticket quotas by pulling over motorists who were even fractionally above the speed limit.

    It might also have been something to do with the area’s later Germanic heritage, which encouraged a certain sense of order and adherence to the tenets of the law. German Lutherans had first come to Maine in the middle of the eighteenth century, settling in what was now Waldoboro, but was then known as Broad Bay. They had been promised houses, a church, and supplies, none of which materialized, and instead found themselves marooned in a hostile landscape. They resorted to building temporary shelters and hunting local game, and the weakest among them didn’t survive that first winter. Later they fought the French and the Indians, and communities were split during the Revolutionary War between those who sided with the Americans in the cause of liberty and those who were reluctant to break their oath of allegiance to the English Crown.

    By then, the Germans were firmly established in Maine. Sometime in the late nineteenth century, a bunch of them made their way to Boreas, usurped the Greeks, and had been there ever since. The town’s register of voters boasted Ackermanns, Baumgartners, Huebers, Kusters, Vogels, and Wexlers. Farther down the coast, in the town of Pirna—named after the town in Saxony from which its homesick founders hailed—were more Germans, and even a small number of German Jews: a scattering of Arnsteins, Bingens, Lewens, Rossmans, and Wachsmanns. Soames, who was English on his great-grandfather’s side and Welsh on his great-grandmother’s (although for some reason nobody in his family liked to talk about the Welsh side), regarded them all in the same light—everyone was a potential client—although he could recall his grandfather’s strong opinions on the Germans, a consequence of his great-grandfather’s experiences during World War I, and his grandfather’s own memories of World War II. Being shot at for years by men of a particular nationality will tend to impact negatively upon one’s view of them.

    Soames left Bay Street behind and turned onto Burgess Road. He paused outside the Sailmaker. The doors were closed, and he could see no signs of life. He had already made his pitch to the Tabors to act as Realtor for the property, and Frank had promised to call him later that day. Soames would miss the Sailmaker. It had boasted a pretty good bar, and he enjoyed shooting the breeze with Donna Burton, who bartended there on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and weekends. She was the kind of flirtatious divorcée who kept customers returning, or male customers anyway, female customers being less susceptible to her charms, and also strangely reluctant to let their husbands or boyfriends spend significant amounts of unsupervised time in her presence.

    Soames didn’t know what Donna would do now that the Sailmaker was closing. She lived down in Pirna, where she worked as a secretary, and her part-time summer hours at the Sailmaker had made the difference between a comfortable winter and one in which the thermostat was kept a couple of degrees lower than ideal. Maybe Fred Amsel at the Blackbird Bar & Grill would give her a few hours, if his wife, Erika, allowed him. Donna would bring her Sailmaker customers with her, and Fred would be competing with the Brickhouse for their business. Maybe Soames would have a word with Fred about it, and Fred could then broach the subject with Erika. Mrs. Amsel might have looked like someone who had repeatedly had a door slammed shut on her face, with the temperament to match, but she was no fool when it came to money.

    Who knows, thought Soames, but when Donna heard about his efforts on her behalf, she might even be willing to reward him with some carnal delights. Soames had given a great deal of thought to just how carnally delightful a night with Donna Burton might be. Those fantasies had sustained him through the dying years of his marriage. Now that he was single again, he had laid siege to her over two summers with a stubbornness that would have shamed the Greek army at Troy. He hadn’t yet managed to breach her defenses, but Fred Amsel might just be the man to boost him over the parapet. If that didn’t work, Soames would have to figure out how to hide himself inside a wooden horse and pay someone to leave him on her doorstep.

    Soames drove on until the houses started to thin out, and the line began to blur between Boreas’s town limits and those of tiny, neighboring Gratton to the north. The two towns shared resources, including a police force, mainly because Gratton made Boreas look like Vegas, so any lines on a map were for informational purposes only. The Boreas PD also had contracts for Pirna to the south, and Hamble and Tuniss to the west, the latter two being townships that consisted of little more than scattered houses and dilapidated barns. Most everyone from the surrounding area went to Boreas or Pirna to do business, and the five towns had come together to form a single council, on which Soames sat. The bimonthly meetings, held every first and third Wednesday, tended to be fractious affairs: property taxes were higher in Boreas than elsewhere, and those in the town who resented seeing their dollars going to service sewers in Hamble, or road maintenance in Tuniss, whispered darkly of socialism.

    Soames turned right off Burgess Road onto Toland’s Lane, which wound its way down to Green Heron Bay, the most obscure of the inlets on the peninsula. It was long, and sheltered by high dunes, and something about its orientation made it particularly susceptible to winds from the sea, so that facing into even a comparatively mild breeze from a house along the shore felt like standing on the prow of a ship during a storm. It was always a couple of degrees cooler in its environs than elsewhere around Boreas, as though winter had chosen this place to leave a reminder of its eventual return. Tourists generally didn’t bother using it, the occasional bird-watchers excepted, and they were usually disappointed by the absence of any herons, green or otherwise.

    Only two houses stood on the bay, both of which were former summer homes, one bought in haste and repented at leisure, and the other a family bequest that had remained unloved and unused following the reading of the will. In truth, Soames had despaired of ever selling, or even renting, either of them, and it had come as a surprise and a relief when both attracted occupants within weeks of each other, even if the pleasure in finally securing some income for his clients—and a monthly percentage for himself—was tempered slightly by the identity of one of the renters.

    Soames had read about the private detective named Charlie Parker, of course, even before the shooting and convalescence that had brought him at last to Boreas. Soames had some friends and former clients in both the Bangor PD and the Maine State Police, and was privy to barroom details of the man’s life that had never made it into any newspaper. If Parker wasn’t quite trouble, he was closely related to it.

    Initially, though, the approach about renting the house came from a lawyer named Aimee Price down in South Freeport, who told Soames that she had a client who needed privacy and quiet, in order to recover from a recent trauma. She came up to Boreas to view the house, decided that it met her client’s needs, and signed a lease, all in the space of a single morning. Yet negotiations over the rent made the meetings of the town council seem somnolent by comparison, and Soames had come out of the whole business bruised, battered, and checking to make sure that Price hadn’t stolen his watch as well. Only when the lease agreement was signed did Price mention the name of her client: Charlie Parker.

    The private detective? said Soames, as he watched the ink dry on the lease. The one who got shot up?

    Yes. Is that a problem?

    Soames thought about the question. It would only be a problem if the people who had tried to kill Parker came back for another attempt. The house had been hard enough to rent as things stood. The owners would be better off burning it to the ground if it became the scene of a massacre. It would also be likely to cost him his seat on the council. He wouldn’t be popular if his lax standards led to Boreas becoming famous for something other than Forrest’s Ice Cream Parlor and the shrimp étouffée at Crawley’s Cajun Citchen. (The Best Cajun Food in These Parts, which, all things considered, wasn’t a slogan to set the heart alight, even if Crawley’s did serve damned fine food, although that cutesy misspelling of kitchen caused Soames to twitch involuntarily every time he saw it in print.)

    He decided that honesty might be the best policy.

    Look, a man like that has enemies, he said, "and nobody has ever been shot in Boreas. I mean, ever."

    Maybe you could put it on your sign, said Price. You know: ‘Boreas: 75,000 days without a shooting,’ like building sites do for workplace accidents.

    Soames tried to figure out if she was being facetious, and decided that she probably was. It had seemed like a good idea, too, if only for a moment.

    Unhelpful suggestions about signage aside, said Soames, his reputation might be a matter of concern.

    There’s no risk of a repeat of the incident that led to his injuries.

    You seem very certain of that.

    I am.

    She stared at him, as if inviting him to ask the question that danced on his lips and tongue. Soames swallowed. His office suddenly felt very warm. He thought about the rental income.

    Given the unusual circumstances, perhaps we could—

    No.

    —look again at—

    I don’t think so.

    —the amount to be—

    You’re wasting your breath.

    Right.

    That house hasn’t had a tenant in almost two years.

    We’ve had offers.

    No, you haven’t.

    You don’t know that.

    Yes, I do.

    Okay.

    Any further questions?

    Will he be armed?

    I don’t know. You can ask him when you see him, if you like.

    Soames thought about what he knew of the detective.

    I guess he’ll be armed, he said, as much to himself as to Price. If he isn’t, he probably should be.

    That’s the spirit, said Price. And the fewer people who know about this for now, the better. Even when he gets here, it’ll be up to him how he deals with folks. Some may recognize his name or face, some may not.

    We mind our own business in Boreas, said Soames. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the one renting the house, and if I’m asked who’s going to be living in it I’ll just say that I have no idea.

    Price stood and extended her hand. Soames shook it.

    It’s been a pleasure, she said.

    Uh, likewise. I think.

    He walked her to her car.

    One last thing, she said, and Soames felt his heart sink. He hated one last things.

    Some men from New York will be coming to look at the house. They’re, well, kind of security consultants. They may want to make some slight alterations, just to ensure that the house is up and running in every way. They won’t damage it. In fact, I imagine that any changes they make will only enhance its value.

    The promise of enhanced value made Soames feel better about everything.

    I don’t think that will be a problem.

    Good. They don’t like problems.

    Something in her tone made him want to reach for a stiff drink, which, when she was gone, was exactly what he did. His secretary saw him sipping from the glass.

    Are you celebrating? she asked.

    You know, he replied, I’m really not sure.

    CHAPTER

    II

    Soames participated in two further meetings before Parker’s arrival in Boreas. The first involved a Maine State Police detective named Gordon Walsh, who appeared in Soames’s office with Cory Bloom, Boreas’s chief of police, in tow. Bloom was a good-looking woman in her late thirties, and had she not been happily married, Soames might have considered putting the moves on her. Of course, the small matter of Bloom’s friendship with his ex-wife also had to be taken into account, which meant that Cory Bloom would be more likely to date a piece of gum that she’d peeled off the sole of her shoe than Bobby Soames, but a man could dream. So far, nobody had figured out a way to police fantasies.

    Walsh hadn’t exactly set Soames’s fears to rest. He’d made it clear that Parker remained vulnerable, and stressed, like Aimee Price before him, how important it was that the detective’s presence in Boreas remained as unpublicized as possible. But Bloom assured Walsh that one of the advantages of Boreas—at least until tourist season began in earnest, which wouldn’t be for another month to six weeks—was the virtual impossibility of anyone being able to stop in town for longer than five minutes without being noticed. If strangers demonstrated unusual curiosity about any of its residents, someone would pick up on it. Bobby Soames could have confirmed the perspicacity of the town’s residents from personal experience, had he chosen to do so, given that his marriage had come to an end precisely because Eve Moorer from the florist’s shop had spotted him coming out of a motel on Route 1, accompanied by a woman twenty years his junior, a gamine who might even have been mistaken for his daughter, if he had had a daughter. But Walsh didn’t need to know that story, and Cory Bloom already did.

    Bloom suggested that, while it might seem counterintuitive to do so, it would be best if a handful of the town’s more prominent and sensible citizens were quietly informed of the detective’s impending residence. She named a number of bar owners; the town’s Lutheran pastor, Axel Werner; and Kris Beck, who owned Boreas’s only gas station, along with a few others. Walsh didn’t object, and left it in her hands. A couple of other minor details were batted around, but otherwise Walsh’s visit to Boreas boiled down to the kind of warnings dotted around train stations and airports: if you see something, say something.

    What I don’t understand, said Soames at last, is why he picked here. It had been bothering him ever since Aimee Price signed the lease on the detective’s behalf.

    You know the Brook House Clinic? said Walsh.

    Soames did. It was an upscale private medical center about ten miles west of town, and more like a resort than a hospital. A couple of Hollywood actors, and at least one ex-president, had been treated there, although their presence at Brook House had never made it into the newspapers.

    Well, he spent time there as part of his rehabilitation, and they’ll be taking care of his physiotherapy.

    He must have money, but he won’t have much of it left once that place is done wringing him out, said Soames. He wasn’t sure that he could even afford to have his temperature taken at Brook House.

    My understanding is that they struck a rate, said Walsh.

    Brook House? I heard they billed you just for breathing the air.

    You, maybe. Not him. You mind if we take a look at the house?

    Soames didn’t mind at all. Bloom drove them out in her Explorer, and Soames found himself instinctively dropping into Realtor mode, pointing out interesting features of the landscape, and the proximity of stores and bars, until Walsh informed him that he was only here for an hour, and wasn’t actually planning on relocating, which caused Soames to clam up and sulk the rest of the way to Green Heron Bay. Walsh made a single slow circuit of the house before entering. He then examined the interior thoroughly, opening and closing doors and windows, and testing locks and bolts.

    What about the other house? he asked Soames, as all three of them stood on the porch, watching the waves break and the sands spiral.

    It’s empty, said Soames. Has been for a while, just like this place.

    Anyone makes any inquiries about it, you let the chief here know, okay?

    Absolutely.

    Walsh took in the dunes and the ocean, his hands on his hips, like he’d just conquered the bay and was considering where to plant his flag.

    Soames coughed. He always coughed when he was nervous or uncertain about something. It was his only flaw as a Realtor, like a gambler’s tell.

    Um, the lawyer, Ms. Price, mentioned that some security consultants from New York would be coming by.

    Walsh’s mustache lifted on one side in what was almost a smile.

    Right, ‘security consultants.’ Is that what she called them?

    I believe those were her words.

    Well, you’ll know them when you see them.

    Soames had visions of black-clad operatives, bristling with weaponry, rappelling from helicopters. Even though it wasn’t a warm day, he took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and used it to mop his brow. This was like preparing for a presidential visit.

    I guess there’s not much more that we can do for now, said Walsh.

    He started to walk back toward Bloom’s car, where the chief was already waiting. Soames trotted along beside him, trying to keep up. Walsh’s strides would have made Paul Bunyan’s seem dainty by comparison.

    You got any idea when he’s supposed to get here? asked Soames.

    A week, I think.

    Will that be enough time for the, ah, ‘security consultants’ to do their work?

    If it isn’t, then he won’t arrive until they’re done. But I expect so. They’re professionals. Walsh’s mustache lifted again. Are you concerned about them?

    A little, Soames admitted.

    Good. You should be.

    Soames tried to focus on his commission.

    Back at his office, he poured himself a drink after Walsh and Bloom had left. He resisted having a second, because that way lay a slippery slope, but he was pretty certain that, before the detective’s time in town was out, he’d be buying another bottle to keep in his desk drawer.

    Maybe even more than one.

    SOAMES WAS ALMOST RELIEVED when the consultants finally arrived, even though he’d been having disturbing dreams in which they appeared as versions of his father and complained about his alcohol consumption. He was starting to feel like Ebenezer Scrooge anticipating the visit of the third specter whose coming he feared the most, when a terse call from Aimee Price informed him that the consultants would meet him at the house first thing on Friday morning.

    The men were already waiting when Soames arrived: one tall and black, the other shorter and whiter, although Soames thought that he might have been Latino, or part Latino, or part lots of things, most of them problematical. Soames knew better than to ask. All he knew for sure was that they made him nervous, the black one most of all. He introduced himself as Louis, but didn’t shake hands. He was wearing a nicely cut dark suit. His head was shaved, and a hint of gray-flecked goatee adorned his face like moonlight reflected on a lake at midnight. The other man, who did shake hands, said his name was Angel, which was another reason for Soames to believe that he might be Latino. Or part Latino.

    Or something.

    Anyway, he couldn’t say precisely why the men were unnerving. It might simply have been the pent-up concern inspired by the earlier references made to them. Then again, it might also have been to do with the fact that, when he began showing them the house, he got the distinct impression they were already intimately familiar with its layout. Okay, so it was possible that they could have looked up the description and dimensions on his website, but the website didn’t detail which doors stuck, or which floorboards squeaked, and the men pointed out these flaws to Soames before they reached the doors or boards in question.

    They were also interested in the panel for the old alarm system.

    How long has it been out of commission? asked Angel.

    I can’t say for sure. The house hasn’t been lived in for two years, so at least that long. Why?

    Just curious. We’ll be replacing it anyway. There are signs of rot in the frames of the doors, front and back. They’ll have to go. The windows look okay for now. We’ll be changing the locks, obviously.

    Er, sure. Just as long as you leave a set of keys with me.

    Sorry, we won’t be doing that.

    Excuse me?

    Only one person is going to have keys to this house, and that’s the tenant.

    I can’t agree to that. Suppose something were to happen?

    Like what?

    A fire.

    You got insurance?

    Yes.

    Then you’re insured.

    What about a flood, or—I don’t know—an accident of some kind?

    The one named Louis turned his head slowly in Soames’s direction. He stared at the Realtor in a manner that made him feel like a tick on the end of a pair of tweezers, waiting to be squeezed.

    You just mentioned fires, floods, and accidents, said Louis. What kind of death trap you trying to rent here?

    That wasn’t what I meant, said Soames.

    Better not be.

    You have to understand, said Angel, that there are unusual security considerations. That’s why we’re here.

    I really do need a set of keys, said Soames, surprising himself with the determination in his tone.

    Okay, then.

    Really?

    Yeah, we’ll give you a set of keys.

    Good.

    What sort of keys would you like?

    What do you mean?

    I mean you can have any keys that you want, just not the keys to this house.

    Soames felt his anger growing. He wasn’t used to being treated like this. He didn’t care who was coming to live in the house.

    Now listen here— he said, before a heavy hand landed on his left shoulder. He looked up at Louis’s face.

    We could go look for another rental— said Louis.

    I’m starting to think that might be a good idea.

    —but that would inconvenience everyone involved, Louis continued, as though Soames had not spoken, which would be bad.

    He smiled at Soames. Soames wished that he hadn’t. It was that kind of smile.

    How much is the lawyer paying you for this place? asked Angel.

    Soames gave them the figure.

    How much were you asking?

    Soames gave him another figure that was about 30 percent higher.

    You’re a tough negotiator, said Angel. It’s amazing that you’re not paying her.

    Soames acknowledged that he had, at one point in his discussions with Price, believed this to be a distinct possibility.

    Let me make a call, said Angel.

    He stepped into the empty living room and took out his cell phone. Soames heard him speaking in soft tones. When he returned, he named a figure closer to the original rent, along with an additional sum of $100 per month to Soames himself for what he termed caretaking expenses.

    Caretaking? asked Soames.

    Caretaking, said Angel.

    What does that mean?

    It means that we want you to take care of yourself, and in return we’ll take care of your house.

    Maybe I don’t need the keys after all, said Soames.

    They’d just be one more thing for you to worry about, said Angel. A revised rental agreement should be at your office when you get back.

    He began guiding Soames gently but firmly out of the house.

    It’ll take a few days to make the alterations required, said Angel. It’ll be done discreetly. You don’t mind if we hold on to these keys for now?

    He waved the keys that Soames had brought with him. Soames patted his jacket. He was almost certain that he’d put the keys in his inside pocket after he opened the door, but he supposed that he could have been mistaken.

    You have my number, said Soames, just in case there are any difficulties.

    There won’t be, but thank you.

    Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it.

    We appreciate it.

    Soames got in his car. The two men had arrived in a new black Lexus LS 600h L, which Soames figured to be about $120,000 worth of machine. Clearly, being a security consultant paid well. He just wished that he understood exactly what that meant.

    As Angel had promised, a revised rental agreement was waiting for him when he got back to the office. It wasn’t until he was emailing a countersigned copy back to Aimee Price that he noticed the agreement had been sent at 8:15 a.m., when he was still on his way to meet the men called Angel and Louis.

    Bobby Soames had just been railroaded.

    Four days later, Charlie Parker arrived in Boreas.

    CHAPTER

    III

    Soames parked his car at the turnoff for Green Heron Road, which ran behind the two houses on the bay. A pair of dirt drives connected the homes to the road: Parker’s first and then, about a quarter of a mile along, the second house, which had always been known as the Gillette House, even though no Gillettes had lived there since the 1960s.

    It was now being rented by a woman named Ruth Winter and her nine-year-old daughter, Amanda. Soames had taken care of the paperwork, but only after running it by Walsh and the chief first. The Winters were given a clean bill of health. Their family was from Pirna, where Ruth Winter’s mother still lived. Soames hadn’t gone poking into Ruth Winter’s affairs, or her reasons for moving to Boreas. It seemed to him that she simply wanted a little breathing space for her and her daughter. Residing in Boreas would allow Amanda Winter to continue her schooling in Pirna, as it was the same school district and the school bus would pick her up and drop her off near the house.

    Soames had paid a couple of visits to the Winters since they had taken up residence in Boreas—more, if he were being honest, than might be considered entirely necessary under the circumstances, not least because Ruth was not unattractive. She was in her mid to late forties, with fair hair and blue eyes. Her daughter took after her, and was already tall for her age. It was only on the third visit that Ruth Winter inquired if Soames was always so attentive to his clients. She posed the question with a degree of good humor, but underpinning it was the clear message that Bobby Soames had delighted her long enough with his presence, which was why, on this particular morning, he had driven no farther than the

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