The Fallen: A Novel - Hardcover

Parker, T. Jefferson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060562382 ISBN 13: 9780060562380

Publisher: William Morrow, 2006

Synopsis

My life was ordinary until three years ago when I was thrown out of a downtown hotel window. My name is Robbie Brownlaw, and I am a homicide detective for the city of San Diego. I am twenty-nine years old.

I now have synesthesia, a neurological condition where your senses get mixed up. Sometimes when people talk to me, I see their voices as colored shapes provoked by the emotions of the speakers, not by the words themselves. I have what amounts to a primitive lie detector. After three years, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the colors and shapes of other people's feelings, unless they don't match up with their words.

When Garrett Asplundh's body is found under a San Diego bridge, Robbie Brownlaw and his partner, McKenzie Cortez, are called on to the case. After the tragic death of his child and the dissolution of his marriage, Garrett -- regarded as an honest, straight-arrow officer -- left the SDPD to become an ethics investigator, looking into the activities of his former colleagues. At first his death, which takes place on the eve of a reconciliation with his ex, looks like suicide, but the clues Brownlaw and Cortez find just don't add up. With pressure mounting from the police and the city's politicians, Brownlaw fights to find the truth, all the while trying to hold on to his own crumbling marriage. Was Garrett's death an "execution" or a crime of passion, a personal vendetta or the final step in an elaborate cover-up? Amid rampant corruption and tightening city purse strings, whatever conclusion Brownlaw comes to, the city of San Diego -- and Brownlaw's life -- hangs in the balance.

A carefully woven novel of suspense, The Fallen brings to life a superb cast of characters against the all-too-real backdrop of a city fighting for its survival. Hailed by critics as "a powerhouse writer" (New York Times) and "a thinking man's bestseller" (Washington Post), T. Jefferson Parker delivers his most elegantly written, suspenseful, and moving novel yet.

About this title

About the Author:

T. Jefferson Parker is the bestselling author of seventeen novels, including the Edgar Award winners California Girl and Silent Joe. Alongside Dick Francis and James Lee Burke, he is one of only three writers who has won the Edgar Award for Best Novel more than once. Parker lives with his family in Southern California.

From AudioFile:

Murder mystery meets sci-fi in this story about a cop affected after a fall by "post-traumatic swelling" of the brain. The injury leaves Homicide Detective Robbie Brownlaw able to judge people by seeing colors they emanate while speaking (red for lying, etc.). David Colacci's tenor voice doesn't have the range needed to successfully portray Brownlaw's female partner, McKenzie Cortez. And Colacci grates on the listener by starting nearly every sentence LOUD, then trailing off. . . LOUD, then trailing off. . . LOUD, then trailing off. . . . There's a great line in the story that describes the performance itself. It won't make your heart pound "like a dryer full of sneakers." D.J.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060562382
• ISBN 13: 9780060562380
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336