The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives

JOHN CONNOLLY

Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1968, John Connolly received a BA in English from Trinity College in Dublin, then an MA in journalism from Dublin City University, taking a job as a freelance journalist for the Irish Times, which he did for five years; he continues to contribute articles from time to time. He has also worked as a bartender, a waiter, a government official, and at London ’s famous Harrod’s department store.

His first novel, Every Dead Thing (1999), introduced Charlie Parker, the dark ex-cop who has starred in most of his subsequent work. It achieved the virtually inconceivable double honor of winning a Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America and being nominated for the Bram Stoker Award by the Horror Writers Association. Crossing genres in the same work of fiction has been historically both risky and difficult, but Connolly has managed it with a rare ability to plot brilliantly while writing original and distinguished prose.

In addition to the Charlie Parker books, Connolly has produced the stand-alone suspense novel Bad Men (2003); a collection of horror tales, Nocturnes (2004); and a noncrime novel, The Book of Lost Things (2006). One of the stories in Nocturnes, “The New Daughter,” serves as the partial basis for a forthcoming film with that title starring Kevin Costner and Ivana Baquero. His most recent books are The Gates, “a strange book for strange young people,” and The Lovers, a Charlie Parker novel.

John Connolly lives in Dublin and, sometimes, in Maine.