T. Jefferson Parker's newest thriller series is home in Fallbrook

K.B. Gressitt

Special to the Village News

T. Jefferson Parker settled in Fallbrook in 2000, and what better place for a New York Times bestselling author and three-time Edgar Award winner to burrow into the quietude needed for the complex plots and deeply human characters he creates. In exchange for the space to write, Parker has honored the town and surrounding region by making them settings in his mystery thrillers ever since he landed here. Even one vaguely familiar Fallbrookian or another has made an occasional appearance.

"When I first came to Fallbrook, I saw a small town that seemed to me very representative of our country," Parker said in a recent interview. "I saw small-town America here, in a good sense. That's a wonderful thing for a writer, because if you can see the country in your town, it's a microcosm. I could see things – everything from the barber pole to Little C's Tattoo – that I could see in a book I would write someday."

And indeed he did. In his newest series, Parker has chosen Fallbrook as home base to protagonist private investigator Roland Ford. Readers were introduced to the former Marine, a clever and likable, but never-quite-happy hero in the first two books of the series, "The Room of White Fire," published by Putnam in 2017, and "Swift Vengeance," published by Putnam in 2018.

In the newly released third book, "The Last Good Guy," Ford tackles a convoluted mystery of uncertain good guys and bad guys, a surfer-dude preacher, and a private security company that leaves the reader feeling less than secure, all in an effort to rescue a young teenager who may or may not want – or need – rescuing.

He'll be discussing "The Last Good Guy" at the Sept. 10 Writers Read, from 6-7:30 p.m., at Fallbrook Library, which also gets a mention in the novel.

"We have a handsome new library," Ford said to himself while munching takeout from Thai Thai, a real restaurant on South Main Avenue.

Setting his fictions in recognizable locales and in the present – with plenty of references to current news and controversies – lends a compelling sense of reality and timeliness to Parker's novels. While there can be a little risk to the strategy, Parker is thoughtful and cautious.

"I tread very carefully on the place that I live and I'm writing about," Parker said. "I'm very careful not to offend the innocent and not to denigrate the well-meaning – and to adhere to some truth about where I am. For example, I've been setting my books in the town I live in my whole life. From "Laguna Heat" on I always put in real business and street names, etc., so the story has verisimilitude, but I try never to put in a genuine place or business or group and cast aspersions on them – unless the aspersions are true, then I fictionalize it. I try to protect my town and use it as a setting at the same time."

In "The Last Good Guy," Parker has succeeded once again in protecting Fallbrook while sharing with his readers its quirky and appealing small-town character.

Writers Read at Fallbrook Library is located at 124 S. Mission Road. For more information about the Writers Read event, visit http://www.excusemeimwriting.com/writers-read/ or contact K.B. Gressitt at (760) 522-1064 or [email protected].