Cold Pursuit - Softcover

Parker, T. Jefferson

3.9

1,174 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 006059327X ISBN 13: 9780060593278

Publisher: HarperTorch, 2004

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California Homicide Detective Tom McMichael has every good reason to pass on the investigation of slain city patriarch Pete Braga. After all, it was former mayor and self-made millionaire Braga who killed Tom's grandfather in a dispute over money -- and Tom's own father who, allegedly, sought revenge by savagely beating Braga's son into imbecility. But there are others who hated the old man as well. And McMichael is a good cop determined to perform his duty to the best of his abilities -- despite his growing feelings for the beautiful nurse who is the prime suspect in the brutal bludgeoning death ... and despite a twisting trail that is leading him into deadly, dark, and very private places where he dearly wishes not to go.

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Review:

Why isn't T. Jefferson Parker as famous as, say, James Patterson or Robert B. Parker? He's that good, and in some ways better. In Cold Pursuit, his 11th novel, San Diego homicide cop Tom McMichael finds himself investigating the bludgeoning death of Pete Braga, a prominent city patriarch who was also a blood enemy of the McMichael family. It's a complex case fraught with political and economic pressures, ugly family history, police corruption, and multiple red herrings, made more complex by McMichael's romantic attraction to a key suspect.

Parker's writing is a pleasure from the first sentence to the last: intelligent, often quietly poetic, clich�-free, and as crisp and dry as a good Pinot Gris. Here is the book's opening paragraph, which accomplishes several scene-setting tasks while pleasing both ear and brain:

That night the wind came hard off the Pacific, an El Nino event that would blow three inches of rain onto the roofs of San Diego. It was the first big storm of the season, early January and overdue. Palm fronds lifted with a plastic hiss and slapped against the windows of McMichael's apartment. The digitized chirp of his phone sounded ridiculous against the steady wind outside.

At times the book's richly complex plot gets confusing, and some sections aren't especially suspenseful. However, every page is absorbing and affecting, and the ending is a shocker. Peopled by a teeming cast of full-blooded characters and set in a San Diego so vivid you can smell the beach and the blood, Cold Pursuit may be Parker's subtlest, most satisfying tale yet. --Nicholas H. Allison

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.

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