The Reapers was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2008. The novel breaks from the series’ established pattern by centering on Louis rather than Parker. When Angel is kidnapped and Louis is targeted by a team of professional assassins, the backstory that Connolly has been building across six novels is finally revealed: Louis’s childhood in the rural South, the racist murder that shaped him, his recruitment into the world of professional killing, and the moral choices that led him to become what he is.
The present-day thriller plot — Louis hunting and being hunted by fellow professionals — is intercut with extended flashbacks to Louis’s youth: growing up Black and gay in a small Louisiana town, witnessing the murder of a man he loved, being discovered and trained by a mysterious figure who recognized his potential for violence. These sequences are among the most powerful writing in the series — Connolly renders Louis’s transformation from traumatized boy to lethal adult with compassion but without sentimentality.
The novel asks whether a man who has killed dozens of people can be redeemed through love (his relationship with Angel) and through choosing to use his violence against those who deserve it. Connolly offers no easy answer — Louis is neither villain nor antihero but something more complex: a man who knows exactly what he is and chooses to continue being it while also choosing love.
Collecting The Reapers
First edition (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2008): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine/fine: $25–$60
- US first (Atria, 2008), fine/fine: $15–$40