I have been a fan of John Connolly ever since I borrowed Bad Men in 2004. Since then, I have worked my way through his Charlie Parker supernatural crime thriller series as well as his other stand alone novels. The main thing I noticed about The Book of Lost Things is just how understated and different it is to his usual work, while still retaining his familiar style and writing ability.

David is a young boy of 12 or 13. Growing up as World War I is starting is not easy, but when his beloved mother dies and his father starts seeing Rose, it becomes harder. He then resents Georgie, his half brother, when he is born, and wishes things were different. As he starts to hear the books he enjoys reading talking to him in hushed whispers, his dreams become more and more vivid until a desperate escape from a crashing plane thrusts him into a fantasy world, where the King rules from a distance, all manner of creatures are in existence, and the Crooked Man threatens to be the deadliest foe. Can David find the King who is rumoured to be able to return him back to his own world?

There is a lot going on here, and Connolly is to be commended for it. The entire book is one big melee of fairy tales told through his eyes and with his own dark and twisted take on them. They range from a seductive Red Riding Hood to an obese and obnoxious Snow White; the Crooked Man bears resemblance to Rumpelstitskin while Sleeping Beauty also gets a chapter or two. Connolly divides the book into chapters, each with a title that indicates what it will likely contain.

As the tale progresses and David finds himself encountering various people that will both help and hinder him along the way, I found that I was thinking and looking for meanings behind the actual words, whether there was anything symbolic about the events taking place and what it all represented. Connoly's work has always had a toe in the fantasy world and I think this lends a difference to his work that other crime thriller authors don't have. Here, although the tale is a bunch of fairy tales thrown alongside one boy's quest to return home, everything is much gentler. There is no murder mystery, and all the gruesome content stops short of being gory and could therefore appeal very well to a young adult audience.

It's not the longest of books. I have the small hardbook version which has 310 pages, and the text isn't the largest. It's an enjoyable read with plenty of places to be able to stop at, although you may find this hard to do. I certainly did. I thought the characters and they way they were introduced and (on occasion) removed from the plot was expertly done, and I found the whole symbolic nature very interesting and thought provoking indeed. This book has served to increase my appreciation level of Connolly's work, showing another string to his bow. It's a far cry from Charlie Parker in many ways, but you can see the darkness as he descends into the more sinister of passages. Recommended.