San Diego Union-Tribune writer John Wilkens recently ran a profile on author T. Jefferson Parker who sets his more recent mysteries in the San Diego area. Parker's latest mystery, The Fallen, is filled with enough local references to serve as a time capsule for modern-day San Diego.
Parker said it can be risky to write about a real place. “At times I guess you are asking people to love the city that you love and are writing about,” he said. “At other times, you're asking them to not like it because you are exposing things that are dark, even though they're fictional.”
Wilkens writes that some authors, such as Sue Grafton, use semi-factual places (her Santa Teresa is an approximation of Santa Barbara) and that gives them more leeway. But that approach doesn't work for Parker. “I like to be as specific and evocative as I can be,” he said. “I like it that way because it provides a verisimilitude for the reader than can be delightful.”
Parker, who makes his home in the north county city of Fallbrook, says his next book will hit even closer to home: It's set in Fallbrook. “It's about a private detective, a TV weather woman who can make rain, and a Mexican mafia kingpin,” he said. “All of them collide surprisingly and dramatically.”
Read the rest of the San Diego Union-Tribune profile of T. Jefferson Parker here.
Technorati tags: mystery books blogs, mystery, mystery books, mystery author, t. jefferson parker.
Wilkens writes that some authors, such as Sue Grafton, use semi-factual places (her Santa Teresa is an approximation of Santa Barbara) and that gives them more leeway. But that approach doesn't work for Parker. “I like to be as specific and evocative as I can be,” he said. “I like it that way because it provides a verisimilitude for the reader than can be delightful.”
Parker, who makes his home in the north county city of Fallbrook, says his next book will hit even closer to home: It's set in Fallbrook. “It's about a private detective, a TV weather woman who can make rain, and a Mexican mafia kingpin,” he said. “All of them collide surprisingly and dramatically.”
Read the rest of the San Diego Union-Tribune profile of T. Jefferson Parker here.
Technorati tags: mystery books blogs, mystery, mystery books, mystery author, t. jefferson parker.