The Dirty South: A Thriler

Written by John Connolly

Narrated by Jeff Harding

“Mr. Connolly’s slam-bang thriller is studded with memorable characters and boasts cliffhangers within cliffhangers.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Brilliant...Connolly is writing at the top of his game.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

The New York Times bestselling author of A Book of Bones and “one of the best thriller writers we have” (Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author) goes back to the very beginning of Private Investigator Charlie Parker’s astonishing career with his first terrifying case.

It is 1997, and someone is slaughtering young women in Burdon County, Arkansas.

But no one in the Dirty South wants to admit it.

In an Arkansas jail cell sits a former NYPD detective, stricken by grief. He is mourning the death of his wife and child, and searching in vain for their killer. Obsessed with avenging his lost family, his life is about to take a shocking turn.

Witness the dawning of a conscience.

Witness the birth of a hunter.

Witness the becoming of Charlie Parker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Nov 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781797108537

John Connolly

John Connolly is the author of the #1 internationally bestselling Charlie Parker thrillers series, The Book of Lost Things and its sequel The Land of Lost Things, 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.

Reviews for The Dirty South

[Emily Blasdel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

John Connolly is one of my top 5 favorites, but this just make it as suspenseful and fun than all of his other books. Maybe part of it was the dramatic reading.

[sandra eike · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A well written thriller with gruesome details. A few too many characters to keep track of, but author does a good job when they are re-introduced.

[Mary Jane Roy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As always, suspenseful to the end! And also with humor.

[Stephanie · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've heard this is a good book, but it took 13 chapters before anything interesting happened. If I had been actually reading it instead of listening I would have put it down sooner. So I'm not going to say it's a bad book because I don't know how it ends. I'll just say, be prepared to sit through a lot of nothing before anything interesting happens.

[Jennifer Tarplee · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

NOT one of a John Connolly’s best. I gave up halfway through. Love the Charlie Parker series but readers should pass on this installment.

[vecharo · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Sad but true. Blacks oppressed and white people prosper. This might as well been a true story.

[Dolores Weiss · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked the story. However I had trouble keeping the characters straight. There were a lot of them it seemed as the names were similar. After the middle of the book I think I had it figured out. One thing I found odd, the plot is in backwoods West Virginia, the characters all talked like you would expect. The author when he was explaining or just moving the story along used upscale vocabulary. Many of the words I had never heard before, others I had heard but wasn’t sure just what they meant. It was fun, was surprised by the style