A Game of Ghosts was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2017. Parker is approached by SAC Ross of the FBI — an uneasy alliance that has developed over the series — with a job: find Jaycob Eklund, a private investigator who has disappeared. Eklund was tracking a figure connected to the Collector (the soul-harvesting entity who has shadowed the series since The Killing Kind), and his investigation led him into a community of ghost hunters and paranormal researchers before he vanished.
Parker’s search takes him through a world of amateur investigators of the supernatural — people who seek out haunted houses, record EVP sessions, and document unexplained phenomena. Connolly treats these figures with characteristic complexity: some are deluded, some are fraudulent, and some have encountered something genuine. The “game” of the title refers to the way these investigations are manipulated by entities with their own agendas — the ghost hunters think they are playing a game, but they are pieces in someone else’s.
The novel deepens the relationship between Parker and the Collector — an entity that is neither ally nor enemy but something more unsettling: a being that respects Parker’s purpose while pursuing its own, parallel and sometimes convergent agenda.
Collecting A Game of Ghosts
First edition (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2017): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine/fine: $20–$45
- US first (Atria, 2017), fine/fine: $15–$30