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Old cop mentors new cop while both chase the serial killer: Who was it who said there are only about six basic plots available for all storytelling?
At any rate, that's the basic format for T. Jefferson Parker's THE BLUE HOUR --- a book in which he proves beyond doubt his increasing skill at thriller writing. This is his best book yet, far superior to WHERE SERPENTS LIE, although SERPENTS is the kind of book that usually seems to cause a bigger splash these days. It is the characters in BLUE HOUR who make the book so compelling.
The old cop is Timothy Hess; he has cancer and is undergoing both chemotherapy and radiation treatments while he chases the bad guy, and he's determined no one will see what this is doing to him inside --- physically, mentally and emotionally. The new cop is a woman on her way up in the department: Merci Rayborn. She's both tough and uncertain at the same time, very much in need of Tim's wisdom but reluctant to ask or to show her need.
Both these characters are complex, believable and extremely appealing. From the outset, the reader becomes emotionally involved with these two and cares almost desperately whether they succeed or fail. This was an element missing in SERPENTS, where all the characters were so flawed that it was hard for a reader to get and stay close to them.
The villain of BLUE HOUR, another serial killer, is a rapist who served out his time in prison and took chemical castration as a means of qualifying for early release. He has been a "good boy" and has kept to the terms of his parole; the effect of the chemical castration on his mind and body is a fate that seems punishment enough in itself. Well, maybe. But does it really work? More important to this book, does it work on him? Hah. This is one very complicated bad guy indeed.
Some of Parker's very best writing comes when Timothy Hess, an old surfer, takes his cancer-ridden body down to the sea: "It always impressed Hess about the Wedge, how close you were to the beach while twelve-foot waves picked you up and charged toward shore with you. Up on top of one was a scary place to be until the speed replaced the fright. Then you had the barrel covering you and the touchy problem of getting out before it snapped your neck on the bottom. But you couldn't try to bail out too soon, either, because then you faced a long drop before the power of the wave was dissipated and that's how you got tangled up in the heart of the fury and held under for longer than you could stand. Hess didn't know exactly how many necks, backs and shoulders the Wedge had broken, but he knew it was a lot." Getting to know Timothy Hess is reason enough in itself to read THE BLUE HOUR --- the thrills and chills, and Merci Rayborn, are a bonus. Don't pass this book by.
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