The Border Lords (Charlie Hood) - Hardcover

Parker, T. Jefferson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525952004 ISBN 13: 9780525952008

Publisher: Dutton, 2011

Synopsis

Three-time Edgar Award-winner T. Jefferson Parker, contemporary crime fiction's most critically acclaimed writer, delivers his dark masterpiece.

Year after year, T. Jefferson Parker delivers powerful novels of depth and intelligence that make it clear that Dutton is not just publishing one of the best crime writers of his generation, but perhaps one of the greatest crime writers ever. The novels in the Charlie Hood cycle are the most accomplished in Parker's long career, and The Border Lords is the pinnacle of what has become the most groundbreaking crime series in decades.

In this riveting new novel, Parker demonstrates once again why The Washington Post said he writes "the best of today's crime fiction," and why he has won the Edgar Award three times.

ATF agent Sean Ozburn is deep undercover supporting the sicarios of the Baja Cartel when he suddenly goes completely dark, his only communications being the haunting digital videos he sends to his desperately worried wife, Seliah. Charlie Hood must determine if Oz is simply chasing demons deeper undercover than anyone has ever gone, or whether his friend has suffered a permanent break with his mission and his moral compass.

A crime novel of unprecedented scope and unrivaled storytelling ambition by one of our most treasured talents, The Border Lords revisits the fevered landscape of America's southern border-and confronts the unexplored depths of humanity's dark soul.

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About this title

About the Author

T. Jefferson Parker is the bestselling author of fifteen previous novels, including L.A. Outlaws and Storm Runners. Along with Dick Francis and James Lee Burke, he is one of only three two-time recipients of the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Parker lives with his family in Southern California.

Reviews

In The Border Lands, T. Jefferson Parker blends morality and ambiguity along the frontier with complexity and aplomb. Although “the narrative trips into hallucinatory territory,” notes the New York Times Book Review, the intertwined stories are nothing less than believable, based as they are on the all-too-real multibillion-dollar drug and firearms trade between the United States and Mexico. Parker’s “propulsive but pitch-perfect works of social realism continue to chip away at the traditional boundaries between their genre and literary fiction,” praises the Los Angeles Times. Although regarded as one of the masters of crime fiction, Parker and this series should appeal to all kinds of readers, particularly those interested in geopolitical relations and an exceptionally well-told story.

At the start of Parker's adrenaline-fueled fourth thriller featuring L.A. sheriff's deputy Charlie Hood (after Iron River), Hood, who's still on loan to the ATF, and his ATF partners are watching a house in the border town of Buenavista, Calif., occupied by four young gunmen of the North Baja Cartel--and Hood's ATF agent friend, Sean Ozburn, who's operating undercover as a meth and gun dealer. When Ozburn goes rogue and fatally shoots the four cartel members, Hood knows he has to bring Ozburn in. Parker skillfully blends Hood's pursuit of the increasingly erratic Ozburn, who approaches a powerful cartel leader about buying the latest gun sensation, the Love 32, with that of L.A. deputy Bradley Jones, a man with connections both to Hood's past and the world of the cartels. The porousness of the U.S.-Mexico border and the ease with which guns, drugs, and killers pass back and forth is nowhere better illustrated than in Parker's white-hot series. (Jan.)
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*Starred Review* Vampire bats and vicious criminals populate the pages of Parker’s fourth thriller in his standout series featuring L.A. sheriff’s deputy Charlie Hood. The Border Lords finds Deputy Hood still determined to battle gun and drug traffic along the U.S.-Mexico border. But this time, his greatest enemy may come from within. Veteran undercover ATF agent Sean Ozburn has dropped out of sight, leaving a handful of bullet-riddled bodies in his wake. Has the stress of years of leading a double life taken its toll, or is it something more sinister? Ozburn’s wife, Seliah, has received passion-fueled e-mails from Sean that speak of a gravely important “mission” but offer no indication of his whereabouts. Both husband and wife have been exhibiting erratic, often-violent behavior, symptoms characteristic of rabies. Clues to the couple’s condition lie in their encounter with a priest in Costa Rica, who may have been anything other than a righteous man of the cloth. Meanwhile, Bradley Jones, the son of the late, lovely gangster Allison Murrieta and a newly minted member of the Sheriff’s Department, has been doing his part to bring down bad guys (and turn himself into a media darling along the way). Three-time Edgar winner Parker has created a memorable character in Charlie Hood, who remains a beacon of restrained hope in a world of despair and dark deeds. High-Demand Backstory: Three-time Edgar-winner Parker, long a favorite of genre cognoscenti, is making the transition to widespread mainstream popularity. His latest, to receive best-seller-type promotion, will increase the pace. --Allison Block

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525952004
• ISBN 13: 9780525952008
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384