A Game of Ghosts (Charlie Parker, #15)

by John Connolly

penumbrae

New word for the day, shadows

chattered so hard that he lost a crown.

That could have almost fitted perfectly into the prior book, I wonder if the author realized that? He must of, the ‘chittering chattering dead king’

He thought of the old commonplace about how giving up vices didn’t make you live longer, but just made it feel as though you were living longer. Nights like these made him feel as though he had been in pain all his life.

I know that feeling, for more than one reason. I think some people just have bad luck, it follows them throughout life, no matter how many sticks you throw at it, it’s like a little puppy dog that won’t stop following you around, getting under your feet & licking your face while you try & stand back up again, as it’ll make you trip & fall, each & every time.

Crooners & Cocktails.

Closed … Permanently.

If you could avoid drawing too much attention to yourself, I’d be most grateful.’

Heh, sheesh, how many years has he known Parker for now? & he asks for something like that! Heh…..

blood was washed from skin to sink, and swirled away in a rush of pink.

Awwwwies, it’s a mini ode to serial killers, how sweet ;)

But it wasn’t about fighting. Sam was special. She had to be protected. And she was, although the precise nature of that protection remained to be understood.

To put it in coffee terms, Sam is half & half, of what exactly is anyone’s guess, but she is undoubtedly someone who needs watching over, even from the perspective of from herself….

Ferguson greeted Parker, and invited him and Rachel to join her in the consulting room.

I don’t trust her, why I don’t know, yet, but I just feel something is off with her, either time I’ll be right, or wrong….

‘But you’re not protecting me, Daddy. I’m protecting you. ‘And,’ she added softly, ‘the ones who are listening aren’t people …’

This is my favorite kinda books in this series that I absolutely adore! But then I’ve always had a soft spot for the preternatural, probably as I think I may of been, in one form or another, a witch in a past life, accused of it at least & quite possibly murdered for it, TMI?…… 🤨

If Jeff starts dating Rachel again, Parker thought, I’ll have him killed.

Heh,& you’ll get ‘mates rates’ at the very least, probably a freebie as Louis hates him too!

Mike the kind to do away with himself (although was there really such a thing as ‘the kind’,

Very true, I doubt many people would think I had, tried that is,thanks to flatmates coming home unexpectedly I’m still here,otherwise I’d probably be dead.

bleeding on the brain.

You don’t get that & not have VERY immediate signs & problems, been there done it, got the hospital tag, subdural haematoma in 2019, thanks to warfarin & a doctor who wasn’t managing me properly. You KNOW when something is wrong with that.

a kind of yellowish pallor. Parker had a vague recollection of yellow skin being a sign of liver problems. He wondered if Frank was seeing a doctor about it,

jaundice

‘And why didn’t you take your own life?’ asked Parker.

‘Rachel,’ came the answer. ‘My daughter kept me alive. Not even my wife could do that.’

That’s why I’m alive in a way, my cat, 15yrs with him, I couldn’t leave him & I couldn’t take him with me, so I took the pain, years & years of pain that utterly broke me, I wanted out, I wanted to die, but I loved him SO much & he’d never of been happy without me, I got him when he was just 4 weeks old & it was just us for 15yrs. Now the pains gone, but so has he, & what I wouldn’t give to turn things back around.

Olive Garden

to cry wolf

Prior page he’s sending prayers for Frank Wolfe & this page up pops that word again

She couldn’t remember what had happened between returning to the house and going to bed. She was confused, and her head was throbbing.

She’s dead, as a kitchen door nail…

Thayer blamed his back problems of late middle age on the family living room suite, having realized too late in life that the floor would have offered a more ergonomically advisable option.

Funny I was just talking with my Mum about how it’s difficult for me to get comfortable, I have scoliosis, but investing in a Lazyboy, & they ARE a pricey piece of furniture, made to your specific needs, colors, fabric etc, & they may look like old fashioned ‘Nana’ chairs, old people chairs, but damn when you sit in one,especially someone like me with back issues, they are everything, as in - E V E R Y T H I N G - that you’d hope they’d be!!! SO comfy & worth every single cent.

a kind of waking dream,

I’ve had a kinda Lucid Dream once & it was really freaky, this minuscule moment where your brain realizes you are part in dream & part awake, & I’m not talking about hazy stuff, but actually REALLY comprehending what you’re seeing is impossible as your dreaming, but your also awake & you understand you can’t possibly be seeing what you are.

with her,’ said the voice of the man behind him,

Awww I was hoping…. :(

‘I think she likes you,’ said Angel. ‘Given the other choices are you and the dark lord over here, that’s not saying much.’

Heh

‘You know what that bird’s name means?’ asked Louis. Parker and Angel admitted they did not. ‘Wanderer,’ said Louis. ‘Wanderer falcon. I like that.’ Sometimes, Parker thought, Louis exhibited disturbing signs of humanity.

Don’t he just. Louis IS a sociopath, or at the VERY least has sociopathic tendencies but I believe they can still feel something for others, usually though, only in regard for how he or she can affect their own lives, if it’s positive then they have positive feelings towards them, negative & your getting a sandy or watery grave. But I also think it’s dangerous to assume one way of typing them works, it just isn’t the best idea. We’re talking a mental disease which also encompasses some actual physical changes, changes that we just don’t know enough about, & we ARE all unique, so throwing one umbrella over them all is done at your own peril.

woman who didn’t get to say much more than ‘Hello’ before the machine cut her off.

Beyerdynamic DT 880s

I googled that expecting to see some high priced headphones, but nope, my Beats Solo cost a lot more, however this book was written quite a few years back in 2017 & it’s now half way through 2024. But still for a real music aficionado his are on the cheaper side.

‘The house is clear,’ said Angel. From bitter experience, he’d learned that just because a building was dark, the doors and windows were secured, and the alarm system was activated, didn’t mean it was unoccupied.

Yep, the last time he did that, boy did he get caught, huh Louis? ….heh

They paused at the base of the stairs, and stared at the walls around them. ‘Congratulations,’ said Angel. ‘You’ve just found someone who’s weirder than you are.’

Heh heh heh if he only knew, because I doubt he tells them everything about his visitors…

She could also have been abducted, but who abducts someone and then keeps her alive for three years?

And as he died, he finally understood why the Brethren were so afraid of the next world.

Damnation & a lot of time to contemplate the factors that lead to them burning in the cold fires for eternity…

where the median house price was roughly $1 million.

That’s nothing these days I just sold my 2 bedroom unit for $865K & am buying an overpriced & underwhelmingly small 2 bedroom apartment where the best thing is the location, 5 min walk to the beach, shops, restaurants, bars etc etc for an overwhelmingly price of $900K. So a million? Sadly it’s not what it used to be…

Then again, he was still relatively young, and the prospect of his own mortality was not yet real to him.

Enjoy it while it lasts Because soon enough you’ll be wishing you could go back & have that freedom of mind Then again I’ve nearly died enough times, I really didn’t need life to point it out all that much more.

Sally could kill someone, he thought. He’d seen what she’d done to the private investigator, and that was worse than murder. She hadn’t taken any delight in it, or none that he could see. She’d just gone about it the way she would with any other unpleasant chore that needed her attention.

Women are more pragmatic than men, we have to be, we have far more things to cope with, saying we’re the weaker sex is a total fallacy! Let’s face it we have to push the equivalent of a bowling ball of our …… & if that doesn’t shut you up & pragmatically make you face life dead on, nothing will!

and then, like generations of the Brethren’s males before him, he waited for a woman to guide him.

See Totally proves my point!

‘What is it, honey?’ ‘I saw a ghost. It was a girl.’

The water in the tub was now little better than tepid. Sally could see the wrinkles forming on her fingers and toes, but she did not want to get out, not yet.

She reached forward and turned the faucet, releasing more hot water.

This is combined for this & the prior highlight… Just my coincidence central showing up again, this bit about the bath, wouldn’t be a typical conversation you’d expect to have, a rarer subject matter… Yet only a week ago myself & a friend were talking about long baths & ditching some water to add more hot water Take it as you will

Mother

‘I don’t believe he had ever seen a black man until he came to the United States,’ said Mother. ‘He was a product of his time and his environment.’

It certainly doesn’t make any negative actions any better, but I do agree that there is a very very little leeway given regarding how people of different races viewed each other in the past, as they grew up in a world where unfortunately that was just how it was. My Dad was born in rural NZ in a farming community in the 1930’s & he used to make racist jokes etc when I was a kid, & I remember on more than one occasion telling him off for it. But I give him credit, he came around to understanding that being that type of person was no longer how society should be & he changed. & just for irony, my first boyfriend was Māori & damn he was good looking, even looking back at photos I still think ‘yum!’ ;)

A single lamp burned in the downstairs room he maintained as an office. He kept the lamp lit for Jennifer, his lost daughter, that she might see it from the dark and know he was thinking of her, and use it, if she wished, as a beacon to find her way back to his presence.

Just like I do for my Sniper, so he will never be alone in the dark again 😥😔

‘You were a good son,’ he said. ‘I could not have asked for better.’

All the things left unsaid, I wish I could of heard this before Dad died, obviously changing Son to Daughter 💔😢

would have to go.

Heh

Parker had always preferred McCartney’s work to John Lennon’s,

They weren’t the only two in the band either… when my Dad went online he used the name Ring0 & later, after he passed away, I bought a Bose speaker system & named it Ring0 in his honor as he & I both love/d music, a love for reading books & listening to music were the 2 greatest gifts he gave me. Oh incase anyone does read this Ring0 = Ringo Starr & poor old George Harrison always seems to come last.

solipsism.

The matrix etc … we’re all just glitches somewhere & don’t know it for looking, it’s a nightmare to even make dystopian believers freak their little nuggets off :)

‘I think you just like tethering goats.’

I hate the fact people do that, it’s beyond cruel, I cannot wrap my head around how anyone can think it’s acceptable!

Sam believed that Stacie Mayer should have been prevented

It’s ok Sam, I have a Stacy that I hate too, although hate may not be a strong enough term….

Sam stared hard at the window, and one by one the panes of glass began to crack.

simulacrum

New word for the day. :)

was about to start work on another poem that no one else would ever read

I write those I used to share them online in the early internet days & people actually liked them, but now, after a massive flood, every single one of them is gone, breaks my heart & was the worst thing I lost, furniture & other belongings you can buy again, but years of poems, nope, just gone & I was really proud of some of them 🫥

favored an obscure French perfume that reminded Kirk of dead chanteuses.

Dead singers?!?! WTF!

If they have their way, you won’t be able to spend time alone with your daughter.’

WTF! Well we know that won’t work as Sam’s going to be terribly upset if they try to do that, & they won’t like her when she’s angry…