And then, of course, there’s Connolly’s use of language. The epigraph that introduces the novel and states that “vengeance and retribution require a long time” is entirely apt given the arc of Charlie Parker’s future career, although the fact that the quote is taken from Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is even more telling. Connolly’s deliberately arch and formal style is an anachronistic delight in an era of minimalist miserabilism and lends a considerable gravitas to Parker’s musings on life, death and the afterlife.
A beautifully measured novel that is equal parts gripping mystery and an unsentimental meditation on grief, The Dirty South is very probably the best crime novel you will read this year.
