T. Jefferson Parker’s latest release, The Border Lords, is a border-crime novel that has been called his “dark masterpiece.” In The Border Lords, Parker once again shows why The Washington Post said he writes "the best of today's crime fiction."
Parker doesn’t write to make an argument or send a message, but just, as he said in an interview, to “tell a good yarn.” Despite that modest claim, he followed that up with a powerful statement about his job as a writer. “If there’s an underlying thought to The Border Lords it’s that the problem with drugs and cartels and violence in Mexico is way, way worse than we think. For a writer, if you go in with such a premise, you suddenly find yourself much as my hero Charlie Hood finds himself, in a place “where the laws of nature and of man no longer apply.” There have been some 40,000 drug related murders in Mexico in five years. My job, premise if you will, is to put a human face on one of them.”
ATF agent Sean Ozburn is deep undercover supporting the sicarios of the Baja Cartel when he suddenly goes completely dark, his only communications being the haunting digital videos he sends to his desperately worried wife, Seliah. Charlie Hood must determine if Oz is simply chasing demons deeper undercover than anyone has ever gone, or whether his friend has suffered a permanent break with his mission and his moral compass.
Parker said that despite his success, he’s never sure what type of reviews he might get. When he releases a new book, he said, “I’m on pins and needles. Sometimes I’m very proud of a certain book and a critic just hates it. And I’m always amazed why they hate it. .. all you can do is hope the next one is better.”
Parker sees writing as “…a voyage of discovery, not the execution of a plan. I never really know what my book is about, or why I’m writing it, until it’s done. You go by some literary scent, comparable maybe to how a bird dog works. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. I’m curious.”
Learn more about T. Jefferson Parker’s novels on his website at www.tjeffersonparker.com. Also, see part 1 in this series about border crime in "Border crime fiction - Devli's Kitchen."
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