The White Road

## Overview

John Connolly notes that *The White Road* is a very dark novel, drawing its inspiration from an exhibition of lynching photography: *No Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America*. He chose South Carolina as the setting because it had recently been in the news for deciding to remove the Confederate Flag from the state house.

He further notes that the whole process of writing the novel was generally miserable, and afterwards he took a hiatus from the Parker series.

Interestingly, he sees *The White Road* as a direct sequel to *The Killing Kind* - an extension and resolution of the Aaron Faulkner story line. Again, the supernatural elements are ratcheted up.

## Synopsis

### Prologue

The Prologue interweaves a historical flashback of a 1964 lynching (the lynching that also is a part of *The Reapers*) and Louis and Angel exacting revenge on the men who initiated the lynching. Near the end of the prologue, Louis and Angel talk about how Parker should have killed Aaron Faulknerat the end of *The Killing Kind*.

### Part One - Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road...

At the start of the book, Parker finds himself working against another PI - Arnold Sundquist. Sundquist had been hired by the Blythes to find their daughter Cassie, who had disappeared a few years ago. Frustrated with the lack of progress, Ruth Blythe hired Parker, and then Sundquist had produced an ex-prisoner named Bear who claimed to have seen Cassie in Mexico. Parker is pretty sure that Cassie is dead and convinces Bear to quit the ruse and he will get him a job.

Parker introduces us to Walter - his 8 month old golden retriever, as he sets the tone. It is the fall again, and he and a very pregnant Rachel Woode have moved in together into a new house. As Parker is in the yard - he receives a call from Elliot Norton, an old friend from Parker's days on the NYPD. Norton was an assistant attorney with the Brooklyn DA's office, but had moved to Charleston, South Carolina. He was calling Parker because he had taken on a client - Atys Jones - who was accused of raping and murdering his white girlfriend Marianne, who happened to be the daughter of one of the richest men in Charleston, Earl Larousse. Norton needs Parker's help to get Jones out of the county lock-up and to a safe house before he is lynched. Norton reports that the town is turning against him.

Aaron Faulkner was arrested and bail denied, but he was arguing that he was an old man who was being held against his will by his son and daughter, and his attorney was appealing the bail decision.

Elliott Norton's house is firebombed that night, and Parker has a dream about an old black Cadillac Coupe de Ville idling on the bridge over the marsh with its rear wide open. This was the same car that Stritch had driven in DH (and which made a brief appearance in KK, driven by Pudd?)

The next morning, Parker agrees to go to South Carolina, and - worried about Faulkner getting out and what his people might do - tries to arrange for protection for Rachel while he is away. He meets Detective Sergeant Wallace MacArthur of the Scarborough PD, who agrees to keep an eye on Rachel in exchange for a date.

Louis and Angel come to visit Parker and Rachel, and agree to go to South Carolina with Parker, Louis announcing that he has something he needs to do along the way. Angel relates to Parker the torture he went through at the hands of Faulkner and Pudd, and they discuss why Angel won't testify against Faulkner, and Angel's desire to kill the preacher.

In an interlude, a man named Landron Mobley is killed in the Congaree swamp after seeing a mysterious woman with reptilian skin.

### Part Two - He gave no comfort, saved no one / Adrift he moves by guilty moons

At Faulkner's request, Parker goes to visit him in prison at Thomaston before leaving for South Carolina. Faulkner had attempted to commit suicide while at Supermax with a blade which he had hidden in his Bible for three months, and so was transferred to Thomaston for psychiatric monitoring. A guard tells Parker that Faulkner is messing with the heat somehow, and that despite the heat being on full blast, Faulkner's cell is freezing. As Parker approaches the cell, he realizes that while the cell is freezing, Faulkner is giving off waves of heat - though apparently not suffering for it. Faulkner taunts Parker by claiming to see the dead, who are asking after Parker. Faulkner alludes to now having contact with others and being able to save their souls. The old man threatens Rachel (and the unborn child) unless Parker walks away. The old man explains that the world is hell - where the rebel angels were consigned for their crimes. As Parker goes to leave, Faulkner grabs him and spits in Parker's mouth, saying that he has given Parker a gift so that "you might see as I see." As Parker leaves the prison, he notices large, black, unnatural-looking ravens circling above the prison.

What he failed to notice, however, was that a fellow prisoner, Cyrus Nairn was signing furiously with Faulkner. Nairn is a violent schizophrenic who abducted several women and hid them in hollows dug out of the banks of the Androscoggin River. He, however, has fooled the prison offiicials who are about to release him. When Faulkner arrives in the psychiatric wing, he befriends Nairn by signing with him (since Faulkner's daughter was also a mute), and promises Nairn "a woman."

Afterwards, Parker meets with Stan Ornstead, the assistant DA, who explains that the case against Faulkner is not strong, and there is a real possibility the bail review hearing will go poorly. Ornstead speculates that the judge will not set bail below $1 million, and he doubts that Faulkner has those kinds of resources, but he notes that Faulkner's legal defense is being headed by Edward Carlyle, who is the right hand man of Roger Bowen, a racist and neo-Nazi, whose base of operations is in South Carolina.

We learn of Bowen's rise through the white supremacist ranks in the 1980s, and how he is trying to reunite the white supremacist ranks, joining Klan, Nazis, and fundamentalists. He is greatly assisted by a man named Kittim, who was a folk hero among the ultra right. Kittim had come to Bowen shortly after Faulkner was arrested, and had spurred Bowen into greater activity. Now Bowen was starting to have doubts about Kittim and realized how little of him he knows. Bowen confronts Kittim, and has a vision where he sees him as "something dark and winged."

The night before he leaves for South Carolina, Parker has a vision of Cassie, who begs him to help her and tells him that she was murdered by one, but many. He hears many other voices also begging for help.

As he leaves the Charleston airport in South Carolina, he is immediately tailed by the Larousse family. He meets Earl Larousse, Jr. who explains that they know why he is here, and they believe Atys Jones guilty, but if Parker can prove someone else killed his sister - the family will accept it. There is obvious tension, however, within the Larousse family.

Parker meets with Norton, and learns that there is a great deal of history between the Jones family and the Larousse family, dating back centuries. He further learns that Atys' mother and aunt disappeared 19 years ago. Parker then drops a future bomb, stating that the past was a woman in white with scales for skin.

### Part Three - I seemed to move among a world of ghosts...

Back at his hotel room, Parker reviews the case notes on Marianne Larousse and feels a kinship with Cassie Blythe. He realizes that he was a bad cop - because cops need to be able to maintain some sort of distance with the victim. He, on the other hand, feels a huge amount of empathy with them. He realizes that he needs to follow this case through for Marianne.

Parker checks on Bear back in Portland, and then reads in the paper that Norton is also representing Landron Mobley, a prison guard who was accused of "improper relationships" with female prisoners. A warrant was issued for Landron's arrest because he had missed a hearing. When Parker confronts Norton about this, Norton explains that the two went to school together, and everybody deserved representation.

Norton and Parker get Jones out of the Richland Detention Center and to a house in Charleston owned by an elderly Gullah couple - Ginnie and Albert - who live with their son Samuel. Parker talks to Jones, and Jones reiterates the basics of the case. He and Marianne occasionally saw each other for sex. The night she died, they had sex in his car, had a fight, Marianne stormed off, and when he found her she had been attacked and her head bashed in with a rock. When the police arrived, they found Marianne's blood all over him and rock dust on his fingers. But Parker gets out of Jones that he saw a woman in white moving away from him through the trees.

Parker learns that Louis has had Klan Killer stay with Rachel for protection. He sees Norton arguing with a woman at dinner. He starts wondering about a preacher that gave Jones a t-bar knife disguised as a cross. He checks on the safe house, and learns that the elderly man thinks it was a ghost that murdered Marianne; there is talk of a woman who haunts the Congaree.

As Parker walks home after dinner, he has an odd encounter with an eery 13 or 14 year old girl who propositions him. When he touches her, she doesn't seem right. She feels liquid and is burning up. She pulls herself away from him, and gets away from him very fast and gets into a black Cadillac Coupe de Ville.

In an interlude, we learn of Angel's life, how he met Louis, a little of what he endured at the hands of Faulkner, Pudd, and Nakir; and his desire to kill Faulkner.