Review brought to you by OBS staff member Verushka
The Connor Grey Series by Mark Del Franco is about a druid who lives in Boston and helps the cops solve those cases involving the supernatural and the Fey.
Hands up anyone who is thinking of Harry Dresden?
I know the similarities are the reason I picked the first novel in this series initially, but The Dresden Files have faltered for me in recent novels (I haven’t read anything since “Turncoat” and considering the blurbs on releases after, I don’t see myself going back) while this series has strengthened and distinguished itself from The Dresden Files.
The series is as follows:
1) Unshapely Things 
2) Unquiet Dreams
3) Unfallen Dead
4) Unperfect Souls.
But, my review is going to cover the series in general terms, and focus on books 3 and 4 as it has been a couple of years since I’ve read the first two and I don’t want to go into them without re-reading them. While each book involves a distinct case that Connor is trying to solve, this is a complicated, detailed world and it is best appreciated starting from Book 1. Del Franco has given readers a world where human and faerie (and this means all types of supernatural creatures) have lived together since both worlds “converged” about a 100-years earlier. This gives opens up the possibilities for the writer to explore human and Fey predjuices and politicking and drawing Connor and the cast of supporting characters deeper into this web. The author does some fantastic world-building in this series and it’s definitely a huge strength of this novel to see human and Fey living together, and the complications that arise from that.
Now, to the characters – Connor was a druid who worked for The Guild, a supernatural police force, for want of a better description. He was their top investigator until a fight with a suspect resulted in his powers become inaccessible to him, blocked by what is termed as a “black mass” in his brain. As a result, Connor has lost everything he’s ever considered important to him – his powers, from which he got stature and money and Del Franco doesn’t sugar coat or shy away from the man Connor used to be. He currently lives in the Weird, a supernatural/Fey slum of Boston, forced to move there because he can’t afford anything better. The underlying theme through the books involves Connor’s search for answers regarding the loss of his powers and the elf responsible for that.
“Unfallen Dead” brings Connor’s past to the fore, as his future progresses.
Dylan, an old partner when Connor worked for the Guild in New York comes to
Boston to take up a position in the Guild office there and Connor finds himself working
against a man he called a close friend and admired greatly. Dylan’s
presence also reveals that Connor’s memory losses in recent years
aren’t all that recent, for he has experienced them before and increases
the scope of what is currently plaguing Connor – the black mass in his
mind, blocking his powers. However, Dylan’s presence also proves to be the
weakest link in the book, for as interesting as Dylan is, and his
relationship with Connor was, not much is done with it at all. There is
some contrast to the relationship/partnership that Connor has with a human
cop, Murdock, but Dylan is sadly underused. I can only hope he returns in
later books.
Dylan’s presence and past with Connor also serves as a catalyst for the beginning of Connor’s “relationship” with Meryl, an archivist at the Guild. She is short, loud-mouthed, fiercely intelligent and more powerful than Connor and is prone to putting him in his place – a refreshing change from the usual female characters that populate urban fantasies. Meryl also has her own role to play in this book, along with a past and regrets that flesh her out beyond being just the exposition-girl
in the novel.
The characters that populate this series are thus far more Fey/supernatural
than human but as readers, our one constant link to humanity is Leonard
Murdock; cop and friend to Connor. Murdock began as a cop turning to Connor
for help with cases related to the supernatural, but quickly found
himself drawn deeper into the Connor ‘s world. As a result of a case with
Connor, Murdock has developed some powers of his own; though no one can
explain how. We see him begin to try and deal with the power, try to
control them better even as he very humanly refuses to acknowledge what it
means for the other, very human parts of his life, like his bigoted, Police Commissioner father. It’s a very human reaction to have and I am so looking forward to see how this
develops.
In Book 3 occurs in the lead up to Samhain, when the dead will walk the earth. Connor, as the book begins, is called to testify regarding his actions in Book 2 in averting an apocalypse, while helping Murdock solve a murder case. As the book progresses those simple beginnings grow into something bigger and converge in a sense in a climactic battle against the Dead. The author is incredibly adept at holding the various threads of this book and the details of this world together for the climax of the book. And as always, underlying this is Connor’s own quest to find out what is happened to him when he lost his powers and how he can get them back.
Book 4 is one of changes for Connor and the world Del Franco has created.
First, Connor finds out more about the black mass in his head and it’s not
something he wants to hear. While working a case with Murdock, he finds the
mass links him with one of the darkest and reviled Fey, a leanansidhe. In
fact, one calls him her “brother” which is about the last thing he wants.
As much as he tries to ignore what it means for him, Connor finds by the
end of the book, that the power the black mass offers is seductive in its
own way and he is not necessarily strong enough to resist it. More
questions are created about the mass and what it is doing to Connor, but
enough is answered that I found myself not minding that there was indeed
more to find out about the mass and its effects.
Meryl is less of a part of the larger story here than she was in book 3,
but Del Franco manages to make her an integral part of the climax in a
plausible way towards the end. Murdock though is the one that endures the
most change as we see hear more of his family and his surprising connection
to Connor and the Fey – which makes me eager to see where and how the
author is going to develop his story.
On a larger scale, we see a shift in Connor’s world with the politics of
the Fey and humans changing in a big way and a new power, no one expected,
emerges. It is a gritty-action packed read and once again, the strengths
of this novel are that detailed threads Del Franco has running through the
book that converge by its end. It’s going to be interesting to see where
the author takes Connor from here.
Another strength of this series is the connection Del Franco has drawn to
Connor and the cast of supporting characters surrounding him. Despite the
larger changes in Connor’s world, this consistency of characters most
important to Connor and to us grounds the book (no matter what Del Franco
puts them through). I find one of the things that turns me off a book completely is the introduction of new characters at the expense of the old ones the author has spent building up only to have seemingly forgotten them for new novels in a series. Perhaps it’s a mark of a series that has gone on for too long that characters need to be changed so drastically like that, but it’s one I hope Del Franco refrains from doing with Connor and his cast of supporting characters.
