Blue Owl

Rating:
Summary: excert from review by New Times
Review: "From the prologue where the vision of shaman I'itoi leads him to be voluntarily sealed in a cave as the perpetual guardian of its secrets, this novel draws the reader inexorably into the story, all the while teaching those same secrets to a society as far removed from I'itoi's as the stars. .. Parrish's plot, based on a Native American legend, is stretched across its framework as tightly as the skin of a tribal drum. "Blue Owl" could establish Parrish as a legend himself"

Rating:
Summary: excerpt from a review by the San Diego/La Jolla Light
Review: Before you even open the book, Blue Owl, you are drawn it. It is set in the beautiful backdrop of Arizona intermingling environmentalism, theft, and murder. It get across it points about Native American causes and environmentalism without beating the reader over the head. It doesn't preach, instead it gives you something to think about. It helps the reader to understand what it is Parrish's characters are going through and why.

It also makes you feel a sense of the author's love of his subject, and the affection shows through in the words. Parrish has a passion in his other works that flow through as if the man is on a mission to convince the world that his corner of the world is the most beautiful place there is to be. And with each instance, in each locale, it is.

The book is lyrically written, almost musically. It follows two very personable characters, Jack Reed and Cierra Rose Alcaraz, with humor, magic and some romance. You get a feel for their lives, and they will have a lasting effect on yours.

Rating:
Summary: excerpt from a review by the San Diego/La Jolla Light
Review: Dispatch Columist Jimmy Jones told Parrish when he was young that "Storytellers are the voice of the past, present and future. Visionaries walk a long, difficult, and often lonely road, but their road is the high ground."

The novel, Blue Owl, blends art theft, archaeological and ecological vandalism and murder with the fascination with rock art (petroglyphs) and mythology. The book also weaves a tight tale of suspense and intrigue that moves along a parallel track with a regrettably nonfiction lament about suburban sprawl into the desert Southwest.

To understand how close the fragile ecosystem of the area has become to Parrish's heart, one need only read a brief narrative passage from Blue Owl that describes sunrise on the fringe of the desert:

"Beyond the orchard, a band of javelinas was moving through the creosote bushes. Mesquite, cats claw, and huckleberries sprang up in the sandy patches between the granite hillocks. Ironwood, sapote, and white-flowered plumbago were scattered along the wash. A Gila woodpecker, its red head flashing, sat half-hidden behind one of the limbs of the eucalyptus. A white-necked raven landed on top of the scarecrow, made from saguaro cactus ribs and clothed in Ruiz's faded jeans and flannel shirt, and cocked its head and surveyed the bean patch. The colors of dawn luminated the peaks of the far-away Superstition Mountains, lighting the blue-gray mists that floated across the Salt River Valley. The first pinks turned to electric orange and finally to a searing white slash that streaked across the cobalt sky."

Johnny Jones was right.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing book
Review: The story line of this book could have been engrossing if it had been written by a competent author. A minor but distracting irritation was the typographical errors in the text. The character development was non-existent. The descriptive passages were not evocative of vivid images. The plot was not presented in a logical fashion. My book club members did not like this book at all. Our secretary promises to write a lucid review in the future. The style in which I wrote this brief review is reminiscent of the author's style -- a string of declarative sentences.