Rating: 
Summary: T. Jefferson Parker's character Merci Rayborn
Review: I enjoy Parker's writing skills. He is a craftsman of words. I especially enjoy his Merci Rayborn character - she is complex and he provides more insights to her with each book he has give us. Although I really enjoyed Silent Joe...I would like to see more of Merci Rayborn. His books are taunt, expressive (without being overly so), suspense to make you crazy. I really enjoy his work.
Rating:
Summary: Parker's Best
Review: I haven't yet finished Black Water, but I believe it's Parker's best to date. Mercie has come into own with Black Water and that alone has made this a real good read. I enjoy all of Parker's work--I live in San Antonio, but was born and raised in SoCal and like many of us was a beach bum far too long--mainly because of the locales. Newport, Corona Del Mar, and Laguna are old haunts of mine. Anyway, Black Water has been entertaining so far. I haven't figured out if Arch is going to get his revenge--I think he will--or if he is just going to die and leave Mercie to do it for him.
Rating:
Summary: Parker's Best
Review: I haven't yet finished Black Water, but I believe it's Parker's best to date. Mercie has come into own with Black Water and that alone has made this a real good read. I enjoy all of Parker's work--I live in San Antonio, but was born and raised in SoCal and like many of us was a beach bum far too long--mainly because of the locales. Newport, Corona Del Mar, and Laguna are old haunts of mine. Anyway, Black Water has been entertaining so far. I haven't figured out if Arch is going to get his revenge--I think he will--or if he is just going to die and leave Mercie to do it for him.
Rating: 
Summary: Merci Rayborn returns
Review: I like T. Jefferson Parker. I have liked him ever since Laguna Heat, which I thought reminiscent of Ross MacDonald, and deeper in the way its plot developed. Parker has been developing as an author ever since, with varying success. He's finally found a series he seems to enjoy writing, and has now done three books featuring Merci Rayborn, an Orange County Sheriff's Deputy who is a homicide detective, and also a single mother. She starts out very ambitious (in her head she's thinking about someday being Sheriff herself) and meticulous in the performance of her job, and in this installment, the ambition has been tempered but the attention to detail in the job hasn't.The case she is working on this time involves an off duty patrolman and his wife, who have been shot at home. The house they're living in is suspiciously expensive (especially given that she doesn't really work much) and they'd been fighting earlier in the day. Though shot in the head, he has miraculously survived, but can't remember much about the shooting. The suspicion among some of the investigators is that he must have shot her himself, and then shot himself, and is now trying to get out of it. We go from there. Like I said, I enjoy T. Jefferson Parker's books. This one isn't his strongest effort. The plot seems a bit loose and unsuspenseful at times, and the ending was fairly predictable. That being said, I did enjoy the book, and look forward to seeing Merci again.
Rating:
Summary: I can't stop thinking about this book!
Review: I read all of the time and I think Black Water is the best book I've read in a long time. How do I know? Because even as I read another book, I keep thinking about this book. Even when I close my eyes to go to sleep, I keep thinking about this book.
I admit that I already have strong feelings about this author. I've read all of his earlier books and I've been eagerly awaiting the release of Black Water. I'm so happy to be able to say that I'm not disappointed. T. Jefferson Parker writes this character (Merci Rayborn, a Sergeant/Detective with the Orange County Sheriff's Department) with amazing insight and sensitivity. She's a wonderfully complex character that we've watched grow through The Blue Line and Red Light. She's experienced enough loss and disappointment to test her confidence. Yet she bravely continues to put one foot in front of the other, bringing herself to a point where the reader is confident that her future is potentially bright.
As for the story, Archie Wildcraft, a Deputy with the OCSD, is found with a bullet in his head. His wife is found shot to death with his gun in their bathroom. It looks like a murder/suicide attempt but to Merci it just doesn't "feel" right. Archie survives and soon walks out of the hospital to investigate for himself, not an easy task since he still has a bullet in his head. Parker gives us amazing insight into the thinking of someone with a brain injury which, as the wife of a brain injury survivor, I know is no easy task! Incredibly, Archie and Merci separately come to the same conclusions about what really happened through the twists and turns of their very different investigations.
This is a well told story with a good plot and what I found to be a hopeful, satisfying ending. It's a book I've recommended to all of my friends by an author that should be read more people. A rare book that's worth even a second read.
Rating:
Summary: The Best
Review: I've read all of T. Jefferson Parker's books and each time I finish one, I think it's his best ever. Maybe that's because his writing keeps getting better and better. Or maybe it's just that each book is so darn good. This is his third Merci Rayborn book - and I KNOW she's getting better. Merci is a flawed personality, a difficult woman, a woman who has lost faith in herself, in her abilities, in her judgment. When it looks like a fellow police officer has killed his wife and tried to kill himself, Merci flat out doesn't believe it. Still, she doesn't trust herself to see the picture clearly. Nor does she trust the opinion of others, not even that of her partner whose opinion she respects more than anyone else on the face of the earth. She's torn about how to conduct the murder investigation. She teeters back and forth between believing in the officer's guilt or innocence. But as clues are uncovered and information revealed, the reader learns as much about Merci as they do about the crime she's working. What a satisfying ending! No doubt about it, reading a T. Jefferson Parker book is like sipping fine wine - in a soft breeze on a warm summer day.
Rating:
Summary: MERCI'S LAW
Review: In this latest entry in the Merci Rayborn series, Parker brings her to a more compassionate and understanding, if still feisty, woman. But in "Black Water," the character who stays most indelibly in my mind is Archie Wildcraft. Archie, an up and coming cop, with a seemingly ideal life, is thrown into a maelstrom of unbelievable proportions.
He's in bed with his wife after celebrating her 26th birthday. While Gwen sleeps, he hears something in the living room..a rock has been thrown in their window. Taking his gun with him, as any sensible cop would do, he goes outside, and is shot in the head by an unknown intruder. We soon find out that his wife, Gwen, whom he sent into the bathroom to hide, has been brutally murdered, and all evidence points to a murder/suicide.
Archie doesn't die, though, and he becomes the prime suspect in the murder. Parker risks credibility in using a frame in two consecutive novels, but it's Archie's plight that makes it work. Archie miraculously pulls out, but his memory has been damaged, and even worse, and here's the key to what makes this novel so devastating, he can't feel emotions anymore.
Archie hears Gwen's voice talking to him, and in opposition to RED LIGHT, Merci believes in Archie's innocence, and strives to prove this and find the two Russian mob members who have done the deed.
The ending with Archie being a modern day Icarus is heartbreaking and tragic.
A brilliant book in its examination of Archie Wildcraft; like some reviewers, though, I think Parker lays it on too thick with Merci and her son. It's not a plot driven device and only blemishes an otherwise marvelous book.
Rating:
Summary: MERCI'S LAW
Review: In this latest entry in the Merci Rayborn series, Parker brings her to a more compassionate and understanding, if still feisty, woman. But in "Black Water," the character who stays most indelibly in my mind is Archie Wildcraft. Archie, an up and coming cop, with a seemingly ideal life, is thrown into a maelstrom of unbelievable proportions.
He's in bed with his wife after celebrating her 26th birthday. While Gwen sleeps, he hears something in the living room..a rock has been thrown in their window. Taking his gun with him, as any sensible cop would do, he goes outside, and is shot in the head by an unknown intruder. We soon find out that his wife, Gwen, whom he sent into the bathroom to hide, has been brutally murdered, and all evidence points to a murder/suicide.
Archie doesn't die, though, and he becomes the prime suspect in the murder. Parker risks credibility in using a frame in two consecutive novels, but it's Archie's plight that makes it work. Archie miraculously pulls out, but his memory has been damaged, and even worse, and here's the key to what makes this novel so devastating, he can't feel emotions anymore.
Archie hears Gwen's voice talking to him, and in opposition to RED LIGHT, Merci believes in Archie's innocence, and strives to prove this and find the two Russian mob members who have done the deed.
The ending with Archie being a modern day Icarus is heartbreaking and tragic.
A brilliant book in its examination of Archie Wildcraft; like some reviewers, though, I think Parker lays it on too thick with Merci and her son. It's not a plot driven device and only blemishes an otherwise marvelous book.
Rating: 
Summary: Weak effort
Review: It may have been my mood but I found the book difficult to read and I had little or no interest in how it came out. Fortunately several of my favorite authors came out with books this week so I was able to put this one away - unfinished.
Rating: 
Summary: I prefer the strong silent type
Review: It started slow, probably because: 1. My only other Parker experience was "Silent Joe", an excellent and very different book. 2. I just finished "City of Bones", and Harry Bosch is a more interesting homicide detective than Merci Rayburn could ever be. She just asks questions that build the story, gets answers and moves on. When Harry Bosch conducts an interview, we get a complete picture of what's happening around him picking up all kinds of nuances in the answers. We know Archie didn't kill Gwen and the idea that this simple young couple hit it big with a biomed stock makes for a shaky piece of the story's foundation. The hospital scenes are also tedious with Archie first at death's door hearing Gwen's voice from the other world then, before you know it, answering Merci's annoying questions. There's more reason to look for a huge bearded man with size sixteen shoes than to arrest Archie, but when reporter Gary Brice gets Archie on tape waving a gun at him, the sheriff decides to bring him in. Archie takes off to find Gwen's killers with her ghostly voice whispering in his ear at every critical turn. The chase reaches its bizarre conclusion, then Merci's partner Paul Zamora, Gwen's sister Pricilla and Merci's son Tim from an affair in a prior novel jump in for an almost random wrap-up on all the aspects of Merci's life. I will try Parker again, but no more Merci Rayburn stories.
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