Returning home after a stint in the LAPD, Tom Sheppard has to solve several vicious murders reaching back to his cop father's generation. A bit far fetched and twisted. ( )

No one does delving into the sins of omission and commission in the old gentry like Ross MacDonald who seemed almost to have a patent on the genre. Parker does a successful emulation in Laguna Heat.

Tom Shephard, recently retired from the LAPD where he was a decorated detective, but also the subject of widespread vilification for shooting a sixteen-year-old, has been hired to work as the homicide detective for Laguna Beach (annual homicide rate 0.5). His first case finds him looking for the killer of Tim Callahan who died with blue cobalt in his hair, $1000 waded up and stuffed down his throat, and a 32 oz piece of basalt smashed into his forehead. The trail leads to events that had occurred many years before with interlocking motives and actions that came back to haunt all of them decades later.

It’s an engaging story if unrealistic. The idea that a homicide detective could just take off and follow his instincts and a suspect down to Mexico struck me as bizarre. Apparently, this was Parker’s first novel and it doesn’t have the polish of some of his later work, but with that caveat it’s better than a lot of other stuff being published. ( )

Don't you just hate it when a book gets made into a movie and they put a movie still on the cover? The photo doesn't match the description of the lead character AT ALL, so it's a bit disconcerting. Overall this was a worthy read. It was easy to imagine a the California coastal communities of the 80's with the flashbacks to the 50's as well. But the best part was the ending--it's always nice when the drama is not neatly or predictably resolved. ( )