Parker is a man tormented by demons, from the very basic ones of not liking the kind of solitary individual prone to outbursts that he is becoming, to the more literal kind . . . his dead wife and child, whose ghosts he seems to summon by not being able to forgive himself for their deaths.

So when he is hired by a woman called Rebecca Clay to get rid of a man who is harassing her, he already has a lot on his mind. Clay is being hassled by an unseemly character called Merrick, who is looking for Rebecca's father, the child psychologist Daniel Clay and doesn't quite believe Rebecca's story that her father is dead.

Daniel Clay mysteriously disappeared around the same time as Merrick's daughter Lucy, who was a patient of his and is now presumed dead along with Daniel.

Parker gets caught up in Merrick's quest to find out what happened to his daughter, whether Daniel Clay had anything to do with her fate, and exactly what a sinister collective called 'The Project' is. Long after Rebecca Clay has dispensed with his services, Parker is further involved in the murky investigation, but nobody seems to be telling the truth. Parker's sense of justice is wonderfully simplistic and it is easy to see why he is such a popular character;

female readers want to fix him up and male readers probably want to be him.

Connolly deals with the issue of child sexual abuse responsibly, opting for a scientific approach, broaching the topic through the eyes of psychiatrists and social workers and thus keeps any gratuitous detail out of it.

As usual, Connolly brings Maine and its environs to life with his in-depth descriptions of the places, the people and how the place has changed over the years.

Fans of Connolly will be delighted to see not only the return of Charlie Parker but also of his sidekicks Angel and Louis, who show up to offer some strong-arm help.

As a writer, Connolly is honing his craft, reducing his writing to a sparse, tight style, and taking a much more subtle approach, a trait not often found in crime and mystery novels.

As a result The Unquiet is a pleasure to read and the subtlety adds to the book's eerie and unsettling atmosphere. Connolly leaves us with an uncertain ending, which will have Charlie Parker fans anticipating the next installment.