Red Light

T. Jefferson Parker

Merci Rayborn is a rising homicide detective in the Orange County force. She has a dark shadow left inside her from the death of her partner, the man she loved and who fathered her son, a few years earlier. She is going on with life despite the cloud that appears to hover around her. She is dating a respected vice cop, Mike McNally. She is building a good team within the department to both help her further her career and vice versa as time goes on.

Then a local prostitute is found murdered in her apartment. Mike McNally had arranged for the woman to help a sting operation to bring down a local "escort service" owner. Mike became closer to Aubrey Whittaker as they worked together. They had exchanged letters and he believed he could be falling in love with her. Merci and her partner, Paul Zamora, are the primary detectives on the scene. The more evidence they collect, the more it appears that Mike is the murderer.

Merci finds herself investigating a man who is very close to her. She gets tangled in another case, as well, that is over 30 years old. The similarities between the two murders keep them both in Merci's mind and attention as she tries to discover the truth. Did the past murder affect the one now? How?

Red Light is a tense, gripping psychological thriller. It preys on the reader's mind, twists the clues, and brings in unforeseen threads. It does not contain graphic violence - instead the reader's imagination is put to work. The writing often makes it difficult to put the novel down. Merci is working through her own demons as she and her partner investigate her lover. She has her own past to overcome to shape her into a new person. Before Red Light is done, events of the past work on her in unexpected ways, bringing her to face a new reality of the future of herself, her son, her father and her job.

The Blue Hour
Red Light
Black Water