Customer Reviews

Cold Pursuit

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Edgar Award-winner Parker ("Silent Joe") manages to do something a little different each time out and his eleventh is a police procedural made personal by family feuding. When 84-year-old Portuguese tuna-boat captain turned Ford dealership tycoon, Pete Braga, is bludgeoned to death in his San Diego bayfront home, homicide cop Tom McMichael catches the case. Braga had killed McMichael's grandfather 50 years earlier and gotten off with self-defense. Braga's son was later brain damaged in a beating long ascribed to McMichael's father, but never proven. Then, years later, the feud derailed the first-love passion between McMichael and Braga's headstrong granddaughter.

The initial suspect is the beautiful young nurse whose home is full of items from Braga's various collections, but her alibi pans out and a romance with McMichael heats up. The investigation branches out to include political wrangling and underhanded business-as-usual money deals in a proposed new airport, a Mexican smuggling operation using Braga's new Fords, and, of course, the heirs. The plot is complex (sometimes confusingly so) and McMichael's inappropriate love life comes to the attention of police department politicos, further muddying the waters. While the story is not particularly compelling or suspenseful, Parker's characters are well-fleshed, preserving a touch of human mystery and murk, and the blustery San Diego winter provides a moody backdrop.

I have read many T. Jefferson Parker books and this is one of the best. You see the term "page turner" used a lot but this is one book that really grabs you and keeps you reading until the end. There is murder, a little romance and a dedicated cop who is tracking down a killer while dealing with his own demons. I dare anyone to start this mystery and not finish it in one sitting. It is really quite riveting.

This was my first book by T. Jefferson Parker, & I enjoyed it thoroughly. Being a San Diego native myself, I'll happily vouch for Mr Parker's extremely detailed command of the finer details of our city's geography, climate, & incredibly incestous Port Commission. Overall, an extremely compelling procedural mystery that kept me guessing 'til the end.

T. Jefferson Parker is magnificent! He doesn't write about shoot-em-up superheroes. This story begins with a murder and then investigates it. Suspects are found and either eliminated or investigated further. The solution was so obvious once you got there but the plot was so cleverly devised that you didn't figure it out until you turned that page.

If you want to learn more than you need to know about the book, read the other reviews. Better yet, read the book.

Unusual for a T. Jeff story, I did make one correct guess early on--usually I find something out when he's ready to tell me--but it didn't help much with the solution of the crime. I dismissed the clue I should have picked up.

The story is rich with solid characters and their personal, working, and family relationships. Tom McMichael investigates the murder of Pete Braga realistically, picking up leads and following them to their conclusion. And the subplots are equally well-developed--the generations-old family feud, McMichael's past involvement with Braga's granddaughter, and his on-going relationship with his son, to name but a few.

I have no reservations in rating this book the five stars it deserves!

The story features San Diego homicide detective Tom McMichael who, on the first page, is given a difficult choice. Pete Braga, long-time family enemy of the McMichaels, has been murdered.

McMichael's lieutenant offers him the case but lets him know he can decline. He thinks it over for just a moment and accepts the case.

McMichael is now in "Cold Pursuit" of Pete Braga's killer, the same man who killed his grandfather in 1952. Braga was an ambitious man in life, with a net worth of a little over 12 million dollars. He served as mayor of San Diego, was the Port Commissioner and part of the Tuna Boat Foundation.

The elder McMichael worked for Braga on his tuna fishing boat. They had argued over wages and got into a physical brawl, which ended with the death of McMichael's grandfather. Braga claimed it was self-defense and never served any time for the death.

The McMichaels believed that he killed in cold blood. The feud continued with the Bragas believing that as payback, Gabriel McMichael, then thirteen-years-old, attacked Pete Braga's son, Victor, and beat him so bad that he was left with the mentality of a ten-year-old.

Tom McMichael grew up knowing both sides but never having proof of either. He had once been in love with Braga's granddaughter and both families had ended the young lovers' affair.

Tom eventually met Stephanie, married and had a son, Johnny. After seven years together, they divorced and he was still reeling a year later.

Totally devoted to his son, he felt he would never adjust to the weekend and Wednesday night visits. He wanted to be a full-time father to his son. He was still single though Stephanie had remarried a dentist, the same one she'd had the affair with before the divorce had been final.

The evidence in the case initially points to Pete Braga's nurse, Sally Rainwater, though she is soon taken off the suspect list. McMichael and Rainwater get a lot closer and then, suddenly, she is again a suspect. McMichael can't decide if he feels she's innocent because it's his gut feeling or if it's because he wants her to be innocent so he can continue their relationship.

"Cold Pursuit" starts out slowly and builds much the way a real case would. Though it lags in places, it feels real.

T. Jefferson Parker brings you into the world of a homicide detective. He leaves the glitz for Hollywood and brings you an authentic case. You'll feel as though you walk beside Detective McMichael as he moves from one clue to the next, sharing each piece of information with you and daring you to solve the crime first.

When Homicide Sergeant Tom McMichael gets the call about Pete Braga's murder, he can't help feeling a bit of pleasure. The McMichaels have hated the Bragas for years, ever since Pete killed McMichael's grandfather. Still, McMichael is a cop and he intends to track down the killer. The pretty nurse looks like a good suspect--her story about buying firewood and getting all of the missing property as gifts sounds a bit suspicious. But McMichael is attracted to the nurse and his gut tells him that she's innocent. Still, does he dare go with his gut, or should he trust the evidence?

Author T. Jefferson Parker delivers another exciting mystery. McMichael, with his conflicted feelings toward the nurse, his ex-wife, and the victim's daughter who was his childhood sweetheart and is single again, makes a strong and sympathetic character. A second case, involving smuggling contraband from Mexico adds complexity to the plot without taking the focus from Pete's murder. The nasty cops from internal affairs, sticking their noses into other cop's business feel authentic.

When I read my first T. Jefferson Parker book (see our review of THE BLUE HOUR) I suspected that I had found a real talent. COLD PURSUIT convinces me that I was right. It is a wonderful and authentic police thriller. Parker delivers emotional depth, thoughtful police work, and exciting action in a tightly worded package. If you haven't discovered Parker, you are in for a treat and COLD PURSUIT delivers. If you're already a fan, you won't be disappointed. COLD PURSUIT is fully up to the high standards that Parker has set for himself.

T. Jefferson Parker is an author who doesn't get the readership or critical praise I think he deserves. His books are crime procedurals/mysteries set in Southern California, with well-developed three dimensional characters all wrapped in the tangled webs of honor, duty and allegiances to the past. The author's books are denser than others of this genre and aren't one pulse raising scene after another - maybe that's what keeps some readers away.

Cold Pursuit is in this mold and delivers. San Diego Homicide Detective Tom McMichael is tasked to solve the murder of Pete Braga, an 84 year old prominent city patriarch. The first twist - the McMichael and Braga families have been involved in a two generation modern day blood feud. To complicate matters Detective McMichael falls for the prime suspect in the case. And to raise the tension level one more notch McMichael is embroiled with Internal Affairs. A partner from his days on the Vice squad is behind bars facing corruption charges and IA is taking a serious look at McMichael.

If this sounds messy, it is. But in this author's hands the story and the sub-plots all flow together smoothly and credibly. All the loose ends and secondary characters are tied together in the end with the mysyery(s) solved and our hero staying true to his principles.

Highly recommended.

San Diego homicide cop Tom McMichael is investigating the murder of eighty-four-year-old city patriarch Pete Braga who was found bludgeoned to death. In a long ago past Braga shot McMichael's grandfather in a fight over a paycheck, then right after the shooting Braga's son was found badly beaten. Was it revenge? The investigation leads to many suspects, including members of both the McMichael and Braga families in this whodunit that will keep you up all night long as it did me.

T. Jefferson Parker's "Cold Pursuit" is a classic crime story...a complicated tale that unfolds effortlessly. He is a most visual writer.

Unanswered questions from the past frame the narrative. No one is quite what he or she appears as Detective Tom McMichael and his partner Hector Paz endeavor to unravel the truth about the murder of eighty-four year old San Diego patriarch Pete Braga.

There are three generations of bad blood between the Portuguese Bragas and the Irish McMichaels. McMichael's basic decency and personal code eliminate any chance of a clouded judgement.

There is no shortage of suspects: City Council members, the Catholic Diocese, a smuggling ring, the police force, members of either family---any of them could have done it.

As McMichael exhumes the past to explain the current crime, you can never anticipate what is coming next.

Each and every clue seems conflicting...altering newfound clarity into opaqueness in the turn of a page.

Wonderful misdirection. To paraphrase Inspector Clouseau: "I suspected everyone and I suspected no one."

A powerful ending. Do not miss this one.

I see the Publishers Weekly review of the book calls it a thriller. Huh? Parker writes well and fleshes out characters well. He has a good feel for throwing in regional and historical data and setting scene with solid descriptive skills. He gives you the sense that a good mystery is forming. But this is where he falls short, as in Herv? Villechaize short.

First, there are MAYBE two tense moments in this book and they are both over in a couple of pages. That's it. So if this book is intended as a suspense or thriller, forget it. And forget the book jacket references to noir--the word, and genre, deserve more respect than that. This is a mystery, no more, and to pull that off requires, well, a mystery. A mystery is more than a guy dead and a whodunit. It's intrigue and suspense and misdirection and escalating threats. That's what make a mystery worthy of 350 pages, and it never comes here.

The protagonist here is not "pro" anything--he doesn't make things happen, just reacts. And the resolution really comes to him, rather than him figuring it out. I am tired of the convenient writer's technique where killers keep our hero alive when they could have killed him, and then volunteer their reasons for doing the other murders. This is only necessary because the protagonist is clueless and we wouldn't have a conclusion otherwise. I struggled to keep reading this one and in the end thought maybe next time I struggle I will put the book down and move on.