T. Jefferson
Parker is known for his strong characters and suspense filled mysteries but in Crazy Blood he writes more of a family
saga in the domestic fiction genre.
Wylie Welborn,
a former skiing champion, returns home to Mammoth Lakes, California (a ski
resort town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains) after a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Wylie has two half-brothers, Robert and Sky
Carson who are also ski enthusiasts. Wylie was conceived when his father had an extramarital
affair with his mother. Wylie’s father
was murdered by his wife, Cynthia for his infidelity. She was pregnant with Sky at the time, was
sent to prison, and has recently been released.
Shortly after Wylie returns home, Robert is paralyzed in a skiing
accident and Wylie hopes to honor Robert by continuing his skiing career and
hopefully competing in the Olympics. Sky
has similar aspirations and this pits the half-brothers against each other. Much drama ensures as the duo seeks to one up
the other on the ski slope and off.
Much of how I
react to a book comes from my expectation.
With Crazy Blood, I had great
expectations as I had loved Parker’s novels from the 1990’s: California Girl, Summer of Fear, and Laguna
Heat. In the early 2000’s, Parker
took a turn toward depravity and violence that caused me to stop reading his
stuff. But in reading the synopsis of Crazy Blood, I envisioned a return to
his earlier style. Well, the violence is
gone but what remains is a disappointment.
The characters were poorly developed and their behavior random. None are believable or likable. Who would name their kid Wylie… like the coyote? The drama makes it feel more like a Lifetime
movie than a substantive novel. If you’re
a T. Jefferson Parker fan, I’d advise taking a pass on this one.
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