Connolly guides Parker towards brooding and intense

His first novel, Every Dead Thing, quickly became a bestseller and The Burning Soul is the latest offering in Connolly’s crime fiction series. The Burning Soul, the tenth Parker mystery, finds the private detective investigating the disappearance of a 14 year-old girl in a small US town. Top of the suspects list is Randall Haight who killed a teenage girl years earlier. But having served his time and built a new life his past crimes threaten to engulf him.

“With The Burning Soul I wanted it to be brooding and intense. You have a small, isolated town that’s been poisoned but you don’t know if it’s by something from outside or within,” says Connolly.

As with the previous Parker novels there is an other-worldly element to his new book. “Some people don’t think there’s any place for the supernatural in crime fiction.

“But The Burning Soul is a reaction to a certain type of writing in mystery thrillers that are front-loaded with bodies. It’s easy to write books about serial killers because all you need is a modus operandi. It’s much harder to write a book that is powered by something less obvious,” he says.

“It’s quite possible to carve out a good career simply by repeating the same ideas over and over again but it’s not very challenging and once you start repeating yourself you’re nearing the end. So for me, it’s about coming up with a good idea and going with it.”

John Connolly is at Waterstone’s in York, September 4 and the Harrogate branch on September 5. The Burning Soul, published by Hodder & Stoughton, is out now.