T. JEFFERSON PARKER'S THE FAMOUS AND THE DEAD

Jeff Parker's Charlie Hood books can be frustrating: they posit the existence of devils and angels, engaged in a competition over us humans; more than once reading this novel I thought about John Stewart's song  'Strange Alliance', also known by the last line of its chorus, 'like heavyweight champs, after the fight, does Christ hang out with the Devil at night?' Reviewing earlier books in the series I didn't give away the gimmick, but now it is so much out in the forefront it has to be revealed, essentially because within the terms of something you might find supernatural, Parker makes this work as a hard-driving border noir that deals primarily in ambiguities, and in the power of love to overcome what we would have to call evil.

The local devil in these books is Mike Finnegan (no relation, I hope, to the great singer-organist of the Serfs, and then any number of records, not least Jimi Hendrix' and including his one fine solo album I know about) and he has his clutches deep into Bradley Jones, the son of Suzanne Jones, aka Alison Murietta, Hood's antagonist and love from LA Outlaws (see my review here). I mentioned Jones in my review of Border Lords, which you will find immediately after LA Outlaws from 2012 on this blog--where I mentioned it was criminal Parker wasn't in print--Sandstone Press deserves kudos for getting him back in print in this country. I now need to catch up with the previous Hood novel, The Jaguar, which is referenced in this one, but doesn't need to be read first (though it would likely help).

Reviewing Border Lords I mentioned, again without explaining, how the gimmick of devils created a problem, but as I implied above, Parker has sorted it out pretty deftly. The Famous And The Dead addresses it directly, making it the major obstacle Hood, in the end, has to overcome. It's complicated: Jones and Finnegan have tied Hood up in a corruption package which seems likely to end his career; Jones' wife Erin is expecting a baby but living with Hood and his girlfriend Beth, but Beth is starting to have doubts about what Hood is willing to do to win his fight with the devil. Meanwhile Finnegan wants Brad and Erin's child, but would prefer he be raised by Jones and his own squeeze, a woman named Owens. Throw in an assassination committed with a gun from a shipment Hood should have stopped, a gang of Missouri rednecks dealing stinger missiles, and Mary Beth, the girlfriend of one of them, who's come to LA to be an actress, as well as an angel trapped down a deep cave, and it's a complicated story that continually twists and turns. 

And the way it does resolve itself is interesting, not as you'd expect, though there is a more logical fate awaiting Finnegan, which will still be available in the next book in the series.  The deck reshuffles, and Hood winds up with a partner I would not have expected, and maybe not the most interesting of the possibilities. Call me sentimental. Also call me convinced Parker can pull off this mix of crime and deviltry: it's somewhere between light-hearted and chilling (Thorne Smith and John Connolly perhaps), but remember too, there are probably more Americans who believe in angels than in evolution.

The Famous And The Dead by T. Jefferson Parker
Sandstone Press £8.99 ISBN 9781908737366

T. JEFFERSON PARKER'S BORDER LORDS

The Border Lords is Parker's fourth Charlie Hood novel, although Hood is not really the main character. You can read my original review of the first, L.A. Outlaws, in the previous post here, and the same thing is true of that book. Hood's part in that story is to act as foil and contrast for Alison Murietta/Suzanne Jones and in this one he's performing the same role for two people: Sean Ozburn, an undercover ATF agent who has gone renegade, and Bradley Jones, a brand-new and massive corrupt deputy LA County Sheriff; a sheriff being what Hood himself used to be. Jones, as it happens, is Suzanne's son, and he blames Hood for his mother's death. That's a fascinating subplot, which presumably will run as the series continues, but it is Ozburn's manic odyssey as a rogue undercover that is the real core of the book. Hood tracks down the reason behind this turn, in the process hears of the strange Father Joe Leftwich, a priest who befriended Ozburn and his wife when they were on vacation, and somehow seems to be at the centre of Ozburn's behaviour.

Writing about L.A.Outlaws, I said that Parker takes risks; that novel ran the risk of being strangled by its own gimmick, but he handled it so well he got away with it. This one has a gimmick too—parts of which seem very obvious (I won't go into details, to avoid spoiling) but which connect finally into something which is more John Connolly territory, a cross-over of the supernatural into crime. It's a nice contrast, especially to the expert way Jones plays the politics of the Sherrif's department, and Hood doesn't do so well with ATF.

I'm not sure if he actually does pull it off—but that is very likely something we will find out in a future Charlie Hood novel. Which is something to look forward too, and look forward perhaps to Hood playing a bigger role—his character is still somewhat one dimensional, and it takes others to bring it out. If Parker's ultimate villain lives up to his reputation, that ought to happen. In the meantime, a UK publisher really needs to pick up these books. I've missed the second and third, The Renegades and Iron River, and a fifth, The Jaguar, is just out in the US. Omnibus time guys.

The Border Lords by T. Jefferson Parker
New American Library, $15.00, ISBN 97804512355565