Wild Instinct - T. Jefferson Parker
I’ve been reading T. Jefferson Parker since the days of Little Saigon and Laguna Heat, so yes – four decades now. And although I’ve never been in California’s Orange County, I sometimes feel as if I know its landscape and people from Jeff’s descriptions – the wild Pacific coast, the tumultuous border with Mexico, the deeply-ingrained Latinx culture. His latest, Wild Instinct, introduced me to a new aspect of the region; its Native heritage. For that, I thank him.
Wild Instinct, like about half Parker’s works, is a police procedural: when the tale opens, OCSD detective Lew Gale (né Luis Gallego) is on the hunt for a mountain lion presumed to have killed local real-estate developer Bennet Tarlow III. But when the ME finds a bullet in Tarlow’s brain, the hunt turns into a murder investigation. Paired with newly-minted homicide detective Daniela Mendez, Gale burrows into the workings of OC’s richest family, three generations of Tarlows, and Bennet III’s biggest project: a five square-mile city he would call Wildcoast. The usual suspects abound: local NIMBYs, the small but vocal indigenous communities, and all those politicians with their hands outstretched.
