Countdown week – meet the Connellys

The Connellys are inspired by the criminal families that often rule over housing estates and communities. They don’t commit crime in person, but have a legion of hangers-on who are their proxy.

Sean Connelly is the ringleader and the successor to his father, Frank Connelly’s criminal Empire. Mr Connelly Snr was the founder of The Gables and the terrible things that happened there in Random Acts of Unkindness. He was the kind of man who found life’s flaws and exploited them to make them even worse.

Sean Connelly has expanded his cruel empire to kidnap and abuse and in Playlist for a Paper Angel we meet one of his employees, Brian Jameson and the true extent of the Connelly wrongdoings is revealed. 

Lisa Connelly, the narrator of one strand of Playlist for a Paper Angel, was married to Sean Connelly’s nephew Declan and has an in-depth insight into the family business, which is why she is hiding.

 

In the third DS Jan Pearce novel, to be released later in 2017, we meet Moira Connelly, Sean’s wife, and find out how she has managed to live her life with the full knowledge of what was happening to the children of Northlands.