Normal Service Has Been Resumed, Unfortunately

And so we’re back from Italy, exhausted but happy and vowing to never, ever, ever, ever fly Ryanair again. Plus ca change, eh?
  Anyhoo, back to business: here’s one I prepared earlier, being an interview I conducted with John Connolly (right, with Sasha – Sasha’s the one with the gorgeous brown eyes, fact-fiends) for the Evening Herald last week, and which appeared while I was away. To wit:

Something spooky this way comes. John Connolly made a name for himself as a writer who could skillfully blend crime fiction and the supernatural, and yet his most recent novels have seen the ghosts and demons exorcised to the point where his last offering, THE REAPERS, had no supernatural elements at all. However with THE LOVERS — Connolly’s tenth novel in as many years and described as “a visionary brand of neo-noir” — the demons are back with a vengeance.
  “Each book I write tends to be a reaction to the one that preceded it,” says Connolly. “As THE REAPERS had no supernatural elements, it seemed natural that The Lovers would spring the other way. But it’s also the case that the [Charlie] Parker novels are developing into a kind of saga, with a larger story running behind the individual novels. In the past, I’ve left it up to the reader to decide if the supernatural manifestations experienced by Parker are real or a product of his own psyche. In THE LOVERS, I decided it was time to come down on one side or the other. I know it will alienate some of the more conservative British and American critics who seem to have a big problem with writers who mix genres. Silly sods.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …