Years ago, NYPD cop Charlie Parker avenged his wife’s and daughter’s death by tracking down and killing The Traveling Man, the serial killer who murdered them. Now Charlie is a private investigator in Maine while trying to start some sort of life without his family.  

Grad student Grace Peltier was recently found dead by what appears to be suicide. As a favor to Grace’s father, Maine Senator Meltzer hires Charlie to find out the truth of her death. Charlie believes her grad school thesis research may have something to do with it.  

Grace’s thesis is about the Aroostook Baptists. The Aroostook Baptists was a self-contained religious colony (a cult to the rest of us) in 1963. In the first year of their existence, the entire colony disappeared with no trace. Everyone suspects a suspicious end, but no bodies were ever found until right after Grace died. A mass grave is found and identified as containing all but three of the colonists.  

Her research took Grace to a current religious group in Maine called The Fellowship. On the surface, The Fellowship is one of those religious groups who promise if you pay them money and touch the TV you can be miraculously cured. But The Fellowship is actually a group who, in their intolerance, tortures and kills those who don’t follow their beliefs – Jews, homosexuals, abortionists, etc. Mr. Pudd carries out (and enjoys) those executions.  

As Charlie digs deeper into Grace’s death, he finds himself the target of Mr. Pudd and of a man hired to kill Mr. Pudd. Now to solve the murder Charlie has to find out who Mr. Pudd works for and why Grace was killed.  

There is no better word for Mr. Pudd than “wacko.” His fascination and admiration for spiders is just twisted. He uses brown recluses and black widow spiders (minimum of 12 at a time) for torture and ultimately death. His victims die from the spider venom.  

Charlie Parker is the typical tortured-by-his-past-but-moving-on-with-his-life hero. As the third book with Charlie Parker, John Connelly frequently references Charlie’s pursuit of The Traveling Man. Charlie calls evil killers, like The Traveling Man and Mr. Pudd, Dark Angels. Having not read the previous books, his thoughts and theories on Dark Angels were lost on me. It did get the point across that Charlie is haunted by his family’s death and does not in anyway regret killing their murderer.

 The Killing Kind is difficult to rate. The mystery was interesting. But too much of the characters’ development relies on having read the previous books. Charlie has a couple kick-ass, gun toting burglar friends who back him up. Not much history on these colorful friends is given. Plus the creepy spider scenes freaked me out quite a bit. The next time I find a black widow in my house (which happens a couple times a year), I’m going to yell for help. However, If you can handle the spiders, this book is a good read.

--Terry Lawrence