- Hardcover: 326 pages
- Publisher: Hyperion (April 26 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0786866004
- ISBN-13: 978-0786866007
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.3 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 635 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,505,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Parker's many fans met Merci Rayborn, the Orange County homicide investigator, in The Blue Hour, and will be happy to renew their acquaintance with her in Red Light. Although she's still mourning the death of her former partner Tim Hess, who fathered her 2-year-old son, her relationship with fellow cop Mike McNally is progressing nicely, and so is her career on the force. Then two murders, decades apart, come together in a way that shakes Merci's world both personally and professionally; two beautiful young prostitutes are both killed for what they knew and what they threatened to tell. Who's covering up the corruption in the department that led to the first murder? And was Merci's lover responsible for the second? Someone's sending Merci evidence that disappeared from the police locker years ago; did that same person frame Mike too?
Merci doesn't want to believe McNally's involved, but everything points to him. When she's forced to arrest him, everything she believes in comes in for a painful reexamination. And when her efforts to solve both killings lead inexorably back to where they started--to the department itself--she faces the most difficult challenge of all.
Parker is a masterful writer, with a sure command of the idiom, a fine sense of pacing, and more emotional depth than many of his colleagues. Fans will applaud this outing, and new readers will seek out his extensive backlist. --Jane Adams
From Publishers Weekly
The murders of two prostitutes 30 years apart provide the framework for this fine crime melodrama about police corruption and political ambition in Southern California's Orange County. The sequel to 1997's The Blue Hour finds homicide detective Merci Rayborn investigating the shooting death of a young hooker. As much as Rayborn hates to admit it, the primary suspect is her own boyfriend, Sgt. Mike McNally, who was a close friend of the prostitute, but claims he never had sex with her. As Rayborn struggles with the emotions of having to expose and arrest her lover, her boss drops another case on her--the unsolved 1969 slaying of another prostitute, found dead in an empty field. Rayborn wonders why such a seemingly simple case was never solved. The more she plows into it, however, the uglier it gets. Details suggest that corrupt political leaders and cops conspiring on a shady development deal may have committed the murder. And, oddly, some of the principals in that event seem to be reemerging in the case against McNally. Parker's latest sizzles along, an infectious blend of atmosphere, action and passion. Longtime fans will recognize formulaic twists and secondary story lines that the author has used before, but the plot stays fresh as it weaves between present and past. Particularly effective is Parker's recreation of Orange County's growth spurt in the 1960s, when unbridled development, backroom land deals and strict political conservatism were the order of the day. And Rayborn, the latest in Parker's line of protagonists with obsessive streaks, impresses as an absorbingly hardheaded hero, one who learns difficult truths about herself as well as about her cases. 7-city author tour. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
MERCILESS MERCI,
By
This review is from: Red Light (Mass Market Paperback)
Parker picks up with Merci Rayborn from BLUE HOUR and thrusts her into the RED LIGHT. Parker is a marvelous writer, deft at both plotting and character development. And while I agree he's "somewhat softened" Merci, I still find her hard to like a hundred percent..and that's good in a way. What she does to Mike McNally in this book only accentuates her driven psyche...she even seduces Mike to gain evidence against him. Then she asks for his forgiveness. It's a shame, I think. I like Mike's character, and his involvement with the prostitute only proved that Merci was neglecting him in a big way. You can have friendship with a member of the opposite sex, and if he found himself "falling" for her, he realized that she was no good for him, and he was never unfaithful to Merci.Back to the plot, though. Parker interweaves the two seemingly disparate cases together to come up with a somewhat surprising solution to the murders. A complex, gritty novel.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Preposterous!,
By C. Loftus "ramseybean" (Downers Grove, IL) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Red Light (Mass Market Paperback)
I understand this is fiction but I have never read such an absurd crime novel. It is a bit hard to believe that practically all the higher ups in the department for the previous generations are corrupt. And to even involve her father in the scheme. PLEASE! I was waiting for her toddler to somehow be involved as well. This was my second, and last, Parker read. What a disappointment.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent second outing in Merci Rayborn series !!,
By
This review is from: Red Light (Mass Market Paperback)
Parker's second book in the homicide sergeant (Ms) Merci Rayborn series (of three so far) is definitely a sequel to his earlier work, "Blue Hour" [which if you haven't read that, STOP HERE]. At the close of that book, Marci loses her temporary partner and one-night lover, Tim Hess, to a bullet meant for her, only to bear his son nine months later. Skipping ahead in fictional time two years to this book, we find Merci not at all over her loss and the fears it has created, despite her unbridled joy in her young son. Her dad, retired cop and widower Clark Rayborn, has moved in to baby-sit as needed and create some semblance of family. Against this backdrop, Merci is back at work with a new partner, Paul Zamorra, who has a somewhat minor role in the action since his wife is dying as we read of a brain tumor. They are assigned to investigate the murder of a hooker in her own apartment, where a seeming abundance of clues is at hand. Meanwhile, with year-end in the offing, the department annually hauls out its cold cases. Merci is assigned a 30-year old unsolved murder, coincidentally, of another hooker shot to death without ever a suspect. In her relentless, intense method of tackling these cases head-on, as she does just about everything in life, Merci begins to harvest "dirt" from both murders, both pointing at comrades and even her new boyfriend, cops all. The plot twists and turns through quite a few different scenarios, including finding some stunning new evidence, creating terrific suspense until the true stories eventually surface. Near the end, Merci needs to deal with some ethical issues about what she's discovered that pose some interesting questions to ponder for us all. Parker manages to pull off a great deal of plot complexity with a relatively small number of characters. That skill means we get to know them well, relate to them and care for them, and really get caught up emotionally in much of the intrigue. We grow fonder of Merci with every passing chapter, as she seemingly matures (at age 36) before our eyes. And we also harbor a great deal of empathy for her struggling to advance her career fighting heinous criminals, while coping with a new son, the terrible death of his father, the personal tribulations of her new partner, and the advances of other men who see as much in Merci to like as we do. To us, that all of that adds up to another top-notch effort: and on to Parker's Merci #3, "Black Water"!
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