T. Jefferson Parker recently appeared at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore to discuss his latest book, Wild Instinct. You can order signed copies of the book through the Webstore. https://bit.ly/43vpj3M. You can also view the conversation Parker had with the bookstore’s owner Barbara Peters.
Now, critic Oline Cogdill shared her review of Wild Instinct. It first appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Thank you, Oline.
Book review: Man, nature and murder collide in new series ‘Wild Instinct’
‘Wild Instinct’ by T. Jefferson Parker; Minotaur; 336 pages; $29
Edgar Award winner T. Jefferson Parker’s hard-hitting novels combine smart police procedurals with characters who are battling criminals as much as their own demons. While that combination is a well-known trope in mysteries, Parker makes each novel fresh and energetic. And California is a well-known terrain for mysteries, but Parker generally explores the state’s Orange County and its environs, sometimes dipping down to Mexico.
The sharply plotted “Wild Instinct” launches a new series about former Marine Lew Gale, who is now an Orange County sheriff’s detective. His skills as an expert sniper in Afghanistan and his background as a hunter often are called on. Lew doesn’t want his latest assignment — hunting down a mountain lion that may have killed prominent real-estate developer Bennet Tarlow, whose body was found on land his family had donated for a vast wilderness park.
Lew uses his instincts about the wild to let the lion escape, believing it’s too old to have killed. He’s right. Bennet was shot. Lew and his new partner, Daniela Mendez, now have a different investigation.
Bennet “was a social creature,” frequently photographed in glossy magazines; a bachelor who dated a lot; a man who seemingly had many friends. But “a guy with that much money and power” has to have enemies, reflects Daniela.
Lew has a history with the Tarlow family. He had worked part time for them years prior and had a favorable impression of them. Bennet “was a nice guy,” Lew remembers.
The investigation leads back to the Tarlows’ recent land plans. Lew’s views about the family are tainted when it’s learned a huge development is being planned on land connected to the Indigenous Acjachemen tribe, from which Lew is descended.
Ancestral land being co-opted by developers has become a common theme, but Parker handles it with aplomb, bringing a sophisticated approach to “Wild Instinct” that readers have come to expect from him. Lew and Daniela emerge immediately as three-dimensional characters. And the Southern California atmosphere seeps through each aspect of the book, from the outdoors to neighborhoods and inside homes.
Parker has another solid series with “Wild Instinct.”