The Renegades (Charlie Hood Series #2)

by T. Jefferson Parker

Overview

For fans of Michael Connelly and CJ Box, the second thrilling novel in the Charlie Hood series from New York Times bestseller and Edgar-award winner T. Jefferson Parker, author of The Room of White Fire.

Deputy Sheriff Charlie Hood cruises the dusty backroads of the new American West. But when his partner is shot dead and Hood is drafted to find the killer, the investigation takes him to places he never wanted to go-where there's no clear line between good and evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451227546
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/02/2010
Series:	Charlie Hood Novel , #2
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

T. Jefferson Parker is the author of numerous novels and short stories, the winner of three Edgar Awards, and the recipient of a Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mysteries. Before becoming a full-time novelist, he was an award-winning reporter. He lives in Fallbrook, California.

Hometown:

Fallbrook, California

Date of Birth:

December 26, 1953

Place of Birth:

Los Angeles, California

Education:

B.A. in English, University of California-Irvine, 1976

Website:

http://www.tjeffersonparker.com

Editorial Reviews

"Ambitious, daring...brilliant." —The Associated Press

"T. Jefferson Parker has burgled the crumbling palace of Edgar Allan Poe for inspiration." —The Wall Street Journal

“Parker, the winner of three Edgar awards for crime fiction, again delivers a tale that is not only well-plotted and suspenseful, but subtle, surprising and endearingly perverse.” —Washington Post

"T. Jefferson Parker has carved out a niche for himself as the Hemingway of thriller writers...His writing is a wonder to behold." —Providence Sunday Journal

“A spectacular close a crime series that obliterated the boundaries of the genre.” —BookReporter  

"If you're interested in the best of today's crime fiction, [Parker's] someone you should read." —The Washington Post

"Parker’s superb new thriller continues the tale of Charlie Hood, the Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy who fell hard for beautiful gangster Allison Murrieta in L.A. Outlaws (2008). Deputy Hood now patrols the Antelope Valley, a desert region north of Los Angeles where still nights and stark beauty provide a refuge from his past (though he still hasn’t come to terms with Murrieta’s death). But Hood’s new beat has a breed of heinous criminals all its own. When his partner, Terry Laws, known by fellow officers as Mr. Wonderful, is gunned down in the passenger seat of their patrol car, Hood once again finds himself among the dark-hearted and the damned. It turns out that Laws wasn’t such a model cop after all. He and a former partner were involved in a lucrative operation running drugs south of the border. Then Laws found a conscience—a little too late. Two-time Edgar winner Parker vividly evokes the spirit of the Wild West, where bad guys prosper and good guys seek vengeance—at a price. He delivers steady suspense and a cast of damaged characters led by Hood, whose days crackle with moral conundrums and bone-deep regret. Approaching the novel’s climax, Parker writes: “a wiggle of fear came up Hood’s back and crawled across his scalp.” Readers will likely find themselves rattled—and riveted—too." —Booklist (starred review) 

"Parker could well be the best crime writer working out of Southern Caifornia." —Chicago Tribune

"The Charlie Hood novels are nothing less than addictive." —Tucson Citizen

"The most groundbreaking crime series in decades." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"This is gripping literary entertainment with a point." —Los Angeles Times

"Some of the finest writing you'll ever read." —Chicago Sun-Times

From the Publisher

[The Renegades is] not as flamboyant a novel as L.A. Outlaws, but it's a good one, in which Parker replaces his gossamer tale of a sexy thief with the ugly realities of police corruption and the multimillion-dollar Southern California drug trade…Parker is an interesting and inventive writer. There's a nice detachment in his portrait of Los Angeles: It's often hell on earth, but he views it with affection and a hint of humor. Because he's unwilling to be locked into a series, Parker glides from novel to novel, usually taking us in unexpected new directions. If you're interested in the best of today's crime fiction, he's someone you should read.
—The Washington Post

Patrick Anderson

In this crackling follow-up to L.A. Outlaws(2008), bestseller Parker brings the Wild West to Southern California. After helping to bring down a corrupt lawman in L.A., sheriff's deputy Charlie Hood has transferred to the desert community of Antelope Valley, where his hopes for a quieter life are shattered one night during a routine call: someone guns down his partner, Terry Laws, in their patrol car. Nicknamed "Mr. Wonderful," Terry is an unlikely target for a hit, so Charlie joins forces with Internal Affairs to track down the killer. But Terry's squeaky-clean veneer starts to crack the deeper Charlie digs into his personal life. There are large influxes of cash, and Terry's old partner, a reserve deputy, has connections to the Mexican drug trade. Parker creates a desert no-man's-land unique in its corruption, but no less dangerous than the roughest of South Central street corners, and Charlie Hood is the perfect reluctant hero to patrol it. (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

Terry Laws was, by all accounts, a superb law enforcement officer. But on the night he happened to be riding with fellow LA Sheriff Deputy Charlie Hood, he was gunned down execution-style. It looks like a straightforward case of a gangbanger getting even with Laws, but Hood is assigned to Internal Affairs and finds the tidiness of this line of thinking disturbing. He gradually teases out anomalies indicating that Laws might have been a corrupt cop following a skewed renegade style of justice. Hood's strong moral compass steers the plot through a bleak morass of drug-saturated culture, stretching from the dreary high-desert suburbs above Los Angeles all the way south to no-man's-land between California and Mexico. Allison Murrieta's spirit (L.A. Outlaws) still haunts him and is personified by her teenage son, Bradley, a smart young soul who hasn't figured out which side of the law he most admires. It's quite a showdown, done the Edgar Award-winning Parker way, in this engrossing tale of justice and redemption. Highly recommended for all popular collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ10/1/08.]
—Teresa L. Jacobsen

Library Journal

Further proof that nobody likes a cop who nails a cop. Deputy Charlie Hood, of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, is doing a stint with Internal Affairs and hating it. "I signed up to throw the bad guys in jail," he complains to a sympathetic ADA. When she points out to him that some bad guys wear uniforms, it's a truth that does little to dispel his sense that things are out of kilter: Cops should never have to chase cops. On the other hand, his investigation into the murder of Terry Laws, Mr. Wonderful to his fellow officers in the LASD, seems a case of an entirely different color: Cop killers should never be allowed to breathe free air. But the case darkens dishearteningly when the victim, a champion bodybuilder and estimable citizen, turns up on the payroll of a fat cat Mexican drug lord. The partner who survives Mr. Not-So-Wonderful, slick Coleman Draper, is catnip to the ladies, a part-time peace officer who's also a full-time stone killer. Draper doesn't enjoy killing, but his approach to problem-solving is thoroughly lethal. All at once, Charlie realizes, he's about to become Draper's No. 1 problem. The pace is leisurely and the plot a bit obvious, but Parker (L.A. Outlaws, 2008, etc.) at three-quarters effectiveness still beats most others at their best.

Kirkus Reviews