Local mystery novelist T. Jefferson Parker has earned popular and critical acclaim for his contributions to the California crime story genre, in the footsteps of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Born and educated in Southern California, Parker's writing career began in 1978 as a reporter for local newspapers, during which time he gathered ideas that he would use in his first novel, Laguna Heat. Parker's following crime novels (all set in Southern California) were warmly received and appeared on many bestseller lists. In addition, his mysteries have received numerous awards, among them the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for Best Novel and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller, both for Silent Joe; the Novel of the Year from the Southern California Booksellers Association for Cold Pursuit, and a second Best Novel Edgar Award for California Girl.

Critics have admired Parker's suspenseful plotting and dark, contemplative characters. Laguna Heat is the story of Tom Shephard, a homicide detective, who tracks down a psychopath who commits grisly murders. That novel was followed by Little Saigon, which Parker notes is "the only one of my books with a strong comic undertone, even though it's a serious story."

In Silent Joe, as in most of his books, reviewers praised Parker's abilities to string along a complex plot that comes together in the end. Rebecca House Stankowski of Library Journal explained, "Seemingly unconnected plotlines, vivid characterization, and real mystery merge to form a truly satisfying thriller."

Cold Pursuit, set in San Diego instead of Orange County, was another success for Parker. The Poisoned Pen newsletter wrote that "Parker again demonstrates his ability to handle complex plot elements, a cast of edgy, unconventional, absolutely alive characters, and the socko ending. Parker draws a terrific landscape of San Diego, not just the physical city but its power structure, its history, and its major players, carrying us across over half a century of California postwar life and reminding us how tangled are the skeins of all our lives."

Jeff Parker has this to say about his most recent novel, The Fallen (2006): "Vladimir Nobokov had it. David Hockney has it. And so did Vasily Kandinsky, Franz Liszt and Jimi Hendrix. Rimbaud wanted it because Baudelaire was rumored to have it. In my new novel, The Fallen, the detective has it. Synesthesia. What the heck is synesthesia? It's a rare mixing of the senses (syn:"union" and aesthesis:"sensation.") What it means is your senses become transposed. You might be able to see musical notes as colors, or hear numbers, or even taste words. Two in every 10,000 people have synesthesia, and researchers say a lot of them don't even know what the condition is called."

"In The Fallen, detective Robbie Brownlaw suffers a terrible injury. Afterwards he begins to see people's emotions as colored shapes that spill from their mouths as they speak. He doesn't imagine these colored shapes. He sees them. They're usually two-by-inches in size, four to eight in number, they linger for a second or two, and he can move them with a finger or pencil before they vanish. At first he's got no idea what's going on. Then he starts to realize."

Jeff Parker lives with his wife and two sons in Fallbrook, and when not working on his books, he enjoys spending time with his family. Among his interests are hiking, hunting, fishing, tennis, diving, snorkeling, and travel.

From: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2006. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC and www.tjeffersonparker.com

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