So I finally thought it was time to get around to reading the Charlie Parker books. I can see why they're popular. This has cops and gangsters, serial killers and child murderers, detection, forensic stuff, gore, tragedy, horror, metaphysics, a hero who is alcoholic, macho, sensitive, haunted by horrific tragedy, laconic, wise-cracking, ridiculously knowledgable, well-read, fit, tough, outside the law, has connections to the law, bucks against authority, is rude to people a lot, sees ghosts, has such a keen sense of right and wrong he is willing to do wrong to defeat evil, feels guilty about it, does it anyway, has a love interest who has to be rescued from the bad guy, has two morally gray but and super-cool macho friends who will back him up who are also a gay couple, meditates on the nature of good an evil and the beauty of landscapes, but does not actually like jazz all that much. Over the years I'd formed a vague sense that Parker was more of a sad, soft, Colombo type, way less of an action more, more physically and emotionally vulnerable. 

There's lots of Irish-author-does-thorough-research-about-US-locations-and-police-procedures-and local-history-and-mafia-lore writing in this, though the writing itself is quite good, lots of tiny little references to other crime writers. It all feels verwhelmingly male, not helped by the narrator of the audio book giving most of the female characters somewhat child-like voices. There's a solid twist and lots of action and violence and borderline supernatural atmosphere and and air of the gothic, particularly when it leaves New York.