Swift Vengeance

June 15, 2018
A private eye seeking to help a military friend matches wits with a devious, deviant killer.U.S. Air Force vet Lindsey Rakes flew drones until the stress of the job led to her abrupt resignation. Her struggles to get her head together since then include going on a date with Rasha Samara, a landscape architect originally from Saudi Arabia, even though she's still in the middle of a divorce from Brandon Goff. When she receives an elegantly written death threat, "Vengeance is justice," signed "Caliphornia," and the handwriting resembles the signature on a note she got from Rasha, she brings the evidence to her old friend Roland Ford, who now works as a private investigator. Ford, who narrates in a curt and gritty first person, takes the case to FBI specialist Joan Taucher. Taucher, convinced that danger is imminent, demands to see Lindsey, who's been in hiding. As Ford negotiates with Taucher, and Taucher probes the Rasha and Caliphornia connections, Ford tries to convince Lindsey of the danger she's in, maybe even from Brandon. Both probes unearth valuable leads that widen rather than narrow the list of suspects. Caliphornia claims a tangible victim in Kenny Bryce, a former Air Force colleague of Lindsey's who, like her, received a threatening note. After Bryce is beheaded, Ford moves to put Lindsey under his personal protection. Digging into Bryce's history puts Ford on the road to finding Caliphornia, and when he does, the tale morphs from a whodunit into a nail-biting cat-and-mouse thriller.Prolific Parker's impressive prose and skill in sketching concise character portraits make his complex follow-up to The Room of White Fire (2017) an all-too-believable page-turner.

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Starred review from June 25, 2018
Lindsey Rakes, the troubled woman at the center of bestseller Parker’s terrific sequel to 2017’s The Room of White Fire, was once part of a team of U.S.-based drone operators attacking terrorists 7,500 miles away. The psychological toll of the work eventually sent her into a tailspin of drinking and gambling that cost her her family, but she’s now recovering. When Lindsey receives a death threat in the mail from someone who calls himself Caliphornia, she shares it with series lead Roland Ford, a San Diego, Calif., PI. Ford enlists the help of FBI agent Joan Taucher, who worries that the threat comes from “homegrown violent extremists.” The stakes rapidly rise after one of Lindsey’s former colleagues in Bakersfield is beheaded. The hunt for Caliphornia is suspenseful, the backstory behind the threats is disturbingly horrible, and the denouement is scary and satisfying. Parker deepens the narrative with musings on Ford’s life, the horrors and ambiguities of the war on terror, and the fine line between justice and vengeance. Author tour. Agent: Robert Gottlieb, Trident Agency.

July 1, 2018
Roland Ford, three-time Edgar winner Parker's newest and arguably most intense character, returns in a second case (after The Room of White Fire, 2017) that takes him once again into the dark labyrinth of America's war on terror. Ford is on the trail of Caliphornia, a killer who has been beheading former members of an air force drone-assassination team. Ford's troubled friend Lindsay Rakes, a harrowing personification of the hidden costs of the war, fears she will be the next team member to be targeted. Working to find the killer, Ford works in awkward tandem with Joan Taucher, a San Diego FBI agent haunted by the bureau's failure to prevent 9/11. A widowed ex-cop and ex-marine combat veteran, Ford carries his own emotional baggage. He is a kick-ass warrior with a heart of gold but a head overflowing with painful memories. Parker's writing is sharp, and each character in the extended cast is unique and finely nuanced despite the super-fast-paced narrative. The themes of redemption and revenge run on parallel tracks, occasionally intersecting. This is quintessential California noir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2018

Three-time Edgar Award winner Parker brings back PI Roland Ford, who's working (if uncomfortably) with San Diego-based FBI agent Joan Taucher to track a killer beheading CIA drone operators. It's both personal (a friend is in danger) and political; this is domestic terrorism, with notes left behind proclaiming, "Welcome to Caliphornia. This is not the last."

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