'The Border Lords' by T. Jefferson Parker

I wasn't too happy with his Charlie Hood novel. The plot seemed to have no center regarding Hood. Instead a few simultaneous character event lines only casually related occurred. Hood should have been the Lone Wolf McQuade guy hosing down the drug exporters after emerging from captivity in a terrorist camp's underground drug warehouse.

Parker's writing is pretty good. I recently read 'how to Write a Damn Fine Novel' by james Frey and noticed that Parker used many of the techniques in his work. Maybe Los Angeles county is just so spaced out that things just happen like that, yet more detail and tighter plotting would seem better.

I found the idea of a 21 year old corrupt Los Angeles sheriff a bit over-the top on credibilty-at least one that has so many egregious criminal successes. The border lords seemed ancillary to the plot, and somewhat disparite villians riviling the main villian-good guy for the leading role.

Hood just seems to observe the action happening at a distance. Parker is a fairly good writer though so the novel is interesting enough reading-and he has one interesting gimmick that is quite worth reading about.

I have only written a couple of draft and a half science fiction novels and have far more need to improve than Parker. My criticism is qualified-I would like to write as well as Parker myself.

Parker seems to have got everything right except making an interesting enough plot with more meaning. 'The non-fiction book 'The Border' by Danelo has good data on the border. Parker's below the border descriptions seem more fiction than prose describing the drug goons, yet his writing of everyone else in that troubled country is engaging enough. Yet some of the characters seem set in just for future books in the series. I would think that each novel should be self-standing without leaving unanswered questions for the reader.