The Unquiet was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2007. Daniel Clay, a child psychologist, disappeared years ago — presumed dead, though no body was found. His daughter Rebecca hires Parker to determine what happened to her father. The investigation leads to a network of institutional child sexual abuse: children who were patients of Clay’s were being exploited, and Clay either participated, enabled, or attempted to stop it — the truth is buried with him.
The novel is among Connolly’s most morally complex: Parker must navigate a world in which the victims are children, the perpetrators are powerful and protected, and the institutions that should have prevented the abuse — churches, courts, social services — were complicit. The “unquiet” of the title refers both to the dead children whose spirits haunt the narrative and to Parker himself, who cannot rest while injustice persists.
Connolly handles the subject of child abuse with appropriate gravity — the violence is never sensationalized, the children are never reduced to plot devices — while using the supernatural elements to express the moral weight of what has happened: the dead do not rest because justice has not been done. Parker’s willingness to operate outside the law becomes, in this context, not vigilantism but moral necessity.
Collecting The Unquiet
First edition (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2007): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first edition, fine/fine: $25–$60
- US first (Atria, 2007), fine/fine: $15–$40