"Iron River" (Dutton, 369 pages, $26.95), by T. Jefferson Parker: Mexico is paying a high price for America's appetite for illegal drugs. The drug cartels have murdered an estimated 15,000 people in the last three years and the violence has spilled across the border to the American Southwest.
Americans, T. Jefferson Parker writes, "are complicit in the problem." Not only are we the market for the drugs, but also the source of the weapons with which the drug lords arm their private armies. "Iron River," the title of his new crime novel, is a metaphor for the illegal trade in American-made weapons, everything from cheap handguns to military assault rifles, that flow to the cartels from hundreds of American gun dealers.
While Parker has a serious message to convey, he is also a popular novelist with a need to entertain. In "Iron River," he succeeds brilliantly at both.
Charlie Hood, Parker's smart, likable young series character, has been detached from his job at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to give the ATF a hand in tracking down illegal gun sales along the border. His first case goes bad, and in the ensuing gunfight, a bystander is shot to death. The victim happens to be the son of one of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, who retaliates by kidnapping an ATF agent. The attempt to rescue the agent forms the spine of the story.
Since the days of Raymond Chandler, California has produced some of our finest crime novelists, and today Michael Connelly, Don Winslow and Joseph Wambaugh continue the tradition. With "Iron River," Parker proves again that he belongs in their company.
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"Iron River" (Dutton, 369 pages, $26.95), by T. Jefferson Parker: Mexico is paying a high price for America's appetite for illegal drugs. The drug cartels have murdered an estimated 15,000 people in the last three years and the violence has spilled across the border to the American Southwest.
Americans, T. Jefferson Parker writes, "are complicit in the problem." Not only are we the market for the drugs, but also the source of the weapons with which the drug lords arm their private armies. "Iron River," the title of his new crime novel, is a metaphor for the illegal trade in American-made weapons, everything from cheap handguns to military assault rifles, that flow to the cartels from hundreds of American gun dealers.
While Parker has a serious message to convey, he is also a popular novelist with a need to entertain. In "Iron River," he succeeds brilliantly at both.
Charlie Hood, Parker's smart, likable young series character, has been detached from his job at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to give the ATF a hand in tracking down illegal gun sales along the border. His first case goes bad, and in the ensuing gunfight, a bystander is shot to death. The victim happens to be the son of one of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, who retaliates by kidnapping an ATF agent. The attempt to rescue the agent forms the spine of the story.
Since the days of Raymond Chandler, California has produced some of our finest crime novelists, and today Michael Connelly, Don Winslow and Joseph Wambaugh continue the tradition. With "Iron River," Parker proves again that he belongs in their company.


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