Customer Reviews

The Renegades

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

From his outstanding debut with "Laguna Heat", Parker's been one of my favorite authors. In my opinion as an LA County resident he has an uncanny ability to capture the moods, nuances and settings of Southern California that's matched by very few; Michael Connelly, James Elroy, Chandler, perhaps one or two others.

"LA Outlaws" was a terrific book, with vivid and captivating characters just oozing noir excitement.

Unfortunately, this follow-up featuring Charlie Hood from the previous book doesn't quite make the grade. The previous book was completely dominated by Allison Murrietta - a descendant of the famed outlaw Juoaquin Murrietta - who died at the end of that work. This book centers on her paramour LA Deputy Sheriff Charlie Hood, who is not nearly as interesting a character; bland and pretty two-dimensional. None of the other characters are as interesting, either. By comparison, this is a pretty blah offering.

Pretty standard fare regarding drug running and money laundering; little tension or excitement; few action scenes; scant psychological suspense.

I will give it props for exploiting the SoCal landscape, though a very promising setting in the Llano del Rio ruins in the Antelope Valley had a lot more potential than I think was really explored.

But again, the main problem here is that I simply don't think the character of Charlie Hood is very interesting or complex. Certainly not enough to center a continuing series on.

Three stars. Mildly entertaining, but far from being his best work. Ultimately pedestrian.

This book reads like it was rushed to print. The story is somewhat choppy and hard to follow. The author uses changing points of view without anything to alert you to the change.

There is also one major plot problem that ruined the story for me. The patrol car wouldn't start because the battery cable was cut. This immobilized the car and set up an ambush to kill the hero's partner. Later, he uses the police radio in the car to call for help. If the battery cable was cut, the radio wouldn't work. There are other inconsistencies in the story, but this was the worst.

All in all, I am disappointed that I bought this book. It could have been much better if the author and editor had taken time to do their jobs. This frequently happens to authors that have written a number of best sellers. They are pressured into cranking out a bunch of mediocre novels. They should focus on each book as if it was the only one they were ever going to write. They owe it to their readers to do the best they can do.

Charlie Hood is back after his adventures in "L. A. Outlaws."

After the shooting and internal affairs investigation of the "L.A. Outlaw" novel, Charlie asks for a more quiet division. He is assigned to the Antelope Valley Division.

While he and Terry Laws are on a call, Terry is murdered. Hood wonders if the killer's gun jammed or did they want to leave him alive as a witness.

Internal Affairs reassigns him to their unit so he can lead the investigation into his partner's killing. It doesn't take long for Charlie to see that Laws was a crooked cop, from his bogus charity to the weekly deposits of $7,200 into his account.

Laws and Coleman Draper arrested Shay Eichrodt, supposidly because he just killed two cartel couriers. There was $340,000 in the trunk which they brought to the leader of the cartel and began their weekly payoffs by moving money and other items across the boarder.

This novel was not up to the excellence of "L. A. Outlaws." In my opinion, the author felt his readers would be familiar with Charlie Hood as the protagonist so there wasn't much character development. In addition there were times when it was confusing to follow when the writing changed from third person to first person in a short time.

In addition, Coleman Draper was an unusual antagonist. At times he seemed honorable and sincere and at others he didn't hesitate to either take a life or order someone killed. Perhaps the author is telling us that although a character may be evil, they could posess some good characteristics.

The author is one of only three people who have won the Edgar Award for best novel more than once. The other two are James Lee Burke and Dick Francis. Nice company.

that scene isn't in the book. The renegades of the title are history before the story begins. With the exception of one character, the son of the outlaw from a previous book, this story plods along and lacks the page turning pace of earlier efforts by this author. Maybe next time.

Charlie Hood, the investigator-hero of Parker's previous novel, L.A. Outlaws, returns to police work after a devastating personal tragedy. Alison Murietta, with whom he had been passionately in love, is dead, and her 17-year-old son Bradley Jones is running with a gang and threatening to murder his mother's killer. Hood, guilt-ridden over his inability to prevent Alison's death, has escaped downtown Los Angeles to Antelope Valley, the high desert country north of LA--the "new frontier." Scheduled to testify against a former L.A. superior whom he reported as a crooked cop, he is particularly sensitive to the fact that while the law makes clear distinctions between right and wrong, people are not saints, and must sometimes see many shades of gray when they make their decisions to act.

Hood is paired with Terry Laws, known as "Mr. Wonderful" for his community service, a man who may be the perfect mentor for the 29-year-old Hood, but on their first night on patrol, Terry Laws is gunned down in what appears to be a deliberate execution. As Hood investigates Terry's background and the circumstances of his death, he begins to wonder if Mr. Wonderful was really as wonderful as he seemed.

Alternating with this story is a second story, narrated by Coleman Draper, a reserve officer who used to work with Terry Laws. Draper is telling a teenager about events from two years ago when two drug couriers on their way to Mexico with a large drug payment were gunned down, and Draper and Laws were injured in a bloody fight with the accused assassin. The two plot lines gradually converge for the reader as Coleman Draper's narrative unfolds and fills in the blanks. Charlie Hood, not privy to this narrative, however, must obtain his information the hard way, investigating and acting under the most dangerous conditions.

Author T. Jefferson Parker develops a vivid picture of the wild and lawless desert atmosphere, which parallels in many ways the moral climate around Los Angeles--a place where gangs terrorize, drug cartels seduce the unwary with easy promises, police evidence gets manufactured, and a kill-or-be-killed mentality makes life a constant challenge both for law enforcement and for the morally bankrupt. Since some of the police themselves may be involved in illegal activity, the dangers to honest society and to honest fellow officers are doubled. The novel, masculine and gritty in its style, emphasizes action rather than character development and leads to a grand finale worthy of a High Noon showdown. Parker's emphasis on morality and conscience, however, keep it from being just another wild shoot-`em-up. n Mary Whipple

Storm Runners (Harper Fiction)

Blue Hour, The

The Fallen

Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs Charlie Hood and Terry Laws are driving together when the former is executed. The brass insists gang initiation or perhaps getting even with Laws who has been a veteran of the streets. Hood is a bit shook up with his new partner's death especially since he prefers patrolling by himself with his demon (the spirit of Allison Murrieta - see L.A. OUTLAWS) to accompany him, but understands why he should not investigate it.

However, Hood is a bit surprised when he is assigned to Internal Affairs, but this also gives him an opportunity to look into who murdered his partner starting with inquiries into the life of Terry, dubbed "Mr. Wonderful". He soon begins to find evidence that alleges Terry that was a crooked cop delivering a personal code of justice. This is something that Hood can understand as a good cop crosses the line to convey justice like in the old west as the system often protects nasty felons not because of fundamental rights that these same hoods tale away from others, but because of those working inside of it are disguised as upright citizens.

Hood is a beacon of morality in a desert of corruption in which drugs seem to own almost everyone's soul from Los Angeles to Mexico. The story line is fast-paced but driven by the throwback hero who obsesses with a need to know whether Mr. Wonderful was a bad or good cop; as defined by Hood and not some artificial law or a pompous judge with Allison inside his head as a reminder of what justice is. Fans will enjoy Hood's Old West mentality in modern day Southern California.

Harriet Klausner

Charlie Hood, a veteran of the Iraq War, is a modern-day lawman with the soul of a 19th century western sheriff. Charlie is a deputy in the L.A. Sheriff's Department, and he cruises the Antelope Valley in the desert north of the city. Charlie loves to drive, preferably alone, and preferably late at night.

One night however, Charlie is paired with another deputy, Terry Laws, known to the rest of the department as "Mr. Wonderful," because of the great job he's done raising his daughters, because of his dedication to the job, the bodybuilding titles he's won, and the charitable work he does in his off-duty hours. Hood and Laws respond to a routine Housing Authority complaint and as they are returning to the patrol car, a gunman appears from behind a tree and murders Laws in a hail of bullets. Hood survives, perhaps because the gun jammed or perhaps the gunman deliberately spared him.

Shortly thereafter, Hood receives a visit from Internal Affairs. The IA people suggest that perhaps "Mr. Wonderful" wasn't so wonderful at all and they want to add Hood to the team and have him investigate Laws. Hood is reluctant; he wants to patrol the county and catch bad guys. He has no taste for investigating fellow cops. But IA offers the usual rejoinder: somebody's got to police the police and, sadly, not all of the bad guys are civilians.

Hood begins his investigation and soon discovers that Laws had an awful lot of money for someone earning a deputy's wages. As he probes deeper into the situation, Charlie is drawn into a sordid world of drugs, money laundering and other illegal activities. But Hood is resolute; he has a strong moral compass, and he will pursue this mess to its conclusion, no matter how distasteful or violent.

This is the second of Parker's books to feature Charlie Hood, and as is always the case in Parker's books, the characters are unique, interesting and sharply drawn. The investigation is intriguing and the climax suitably violent and hair-raising. Parker has written a third book in the Charlie Hood series, Iron River, and one hopes that he will write a lot more.

Other reviewers have noted inconsistencies and skips and blips in the plot; others have trouble with Hood's character. And most of what they note is true, but I like Hood and his simple, clear view of a complex and troubled world. Gary Cooper rides the Antelope Valley. It works for me. The bad guys are bad; the good guys are good. Parker really knows SoCal which becomes a character in a way. So if you like Hood, you'll be fine, and the glitches will recede.

Author T. Jefferson Parker has a theory that outlaws, in the spirit of the old American West, still exist. Parker, in fact, not only contends that outlaws still exist - his theory includes the belief that, just as in gunslinger days, many of today's most notorious outlaws spend some portion of their lives working as law enforcement officers. In The Renegades, his follow-up to L.A. Outlaws, Parker tells the story of two modern day outlaws, both of whom just happen to be Los Angeles County deputy sheriffs.

Deputy Charlie Hood is one of the good guys. He is somewhat of a loner who prefers to ride the roads at night, even in his off-time, as he grows accustomed to his recent assignment to the county's Antelope Valley. Charlie would, in fact, be just as happy never to be assigned a partner, but he soon finds himself working with Terry Laws, a man known to his fellow deputies as "Mr. Wonderful." After Mr. Wonderful is assassinated while he and Charlie are on a routine call, Charlie accepts a transfer to Internal Affairs so that he can get to the bottom of the murder. Perhaps, he thinks, Mr. Wonderful was not really so wonderful after all.

Getting to the truth about his partner's murder will not be easy - or safe. In the process of figuring out what Mr. Wonderful was up to, Charlie will make some ruthless men on both sides of the border nervous enough to want him dead. And they will do their best to make exactly that happen.

There is a good deal of dramatic action in The Renegades, but Parker has chosen to tell his story in a straightforward manner that offers few real surprises. Once the main characters have been fleshed-out in the minds of readers - and the plotline set in full motion - their ultimate fates are too easily predictable. Part of the fun in reading a police thriller of this type is trying to guess what will happen next as the hero gets into deeper and deeper trouble. Surprisingly, however, that fun is somewhat lessened when, as in this case, the reader always guesses correctly.

The nine-CD audio book version of The Renegades is read to good effect by David Colacci, a man whose voice is likely to sound very familiar to fans of audio books. Colacci's differentiation of tone, accent, and cadence make the numerous characters relatively easy to follow despite the book's frequent changes between first and third person perspectives. Not having read L.A. Outlaws, I am uncertain of how wise it is to read this sequel first. Jefferson does make an effort to repeat the key points from the first book to help his readers understand just how Charlie Hood turned into the man he is today, but it is very possible that readers with more background will experience The Renegades very differently than readers coming to it cold.

I enjoyed The Renegades for what it was--a good piece of crime fiction. With any crime fiction novel, the reader expects to be rewarded with Character, and this one holds up to that promise. While we learn early on who all the players are, the fun is sitting back and watching the character development and how things work out as Charlie Hood investigates, in good police procedural form, the death of partner Terry Laws. The descriptions are excellent, and Mr. Parker makes it easy for the reader to see the world of Southern California, even if they've never been there before. The characters are clearly defined, each with their own vernacular and rhythms of speech, and the story is well paced with a decent mix of dialogue and exposition to make for smooth reading. All around, I enjoyed the book.

One criticism. Like another reader, I noticed the POV shift concerning Coleman Draper--sometimes in first person, other times in third--and I never grasped the reason behind it. At least in L.A. Outlaws, you always knew from the start of any chapter (or scene) whose POV you were dealing with, and Mr. Parker never varied. In The Renegades, however, that wasn't the case. Still, it's a minor critique, and not one that would keep me from recommending this book to anyone else.