L.A. Outlaws    by T. Jefferson Parker Order:  USA  Can Dutton, 2008 (2008) Hardcover, CD Read an Excerpt      Reviewed by Tim Davis Drawing upon colorful southern California settings, accomplished author T. Jefferson Parker has previously published fourteen novels that won widespread critical and popular praise. With the fifteenth novel L.A. Outlaws now in bookstores, readers can now thoroughly enjoy what may be Parker's best yet. At the outset of L.A. Outlaws, readers are introduced to Allison Murietta, an enterprising scofflaw who is clever and charming, bold and dangerous; gaining popular notoriety and police attention because of her armed robberies (especially of fast-food restaurants) and her auto thefts, Allison (a spellbinding woman with a mysterious Robin Hood complex and a special interest in and devotion to her ancestral roots) is more correctly known as Suzanne Elizabeth Jones on her driver's license, in her classroom where she works as a history teacher, and to her friends, family, and children. Seizing upon a lucrative bit of serendipity, Allison (Suzanne) finds herself on the good side of a finders-keepers-losers-weepers situation when she quickly lays claim to $450,000 in diamonds (while the owner of the diamonds and more than few gang members lie dead in an auto-body repair shop). Shortly after Allison's (Suzanne's) moment of good fortune, Charlie Hood, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputy (an Iraq war combat veteran with a few skeletons in his own cupboard), makes a routine traffic stop of a woman driving innocently down a street near the same auto-body repair shop; willing to forego giving the captivating driver (Suzanne Elizabeth Jones) a speeding ticket for going sixty in a forty-five mph zone, Hood sends the attractive woman on her way. Later, though, as the LA police try to sort out what happened at the bloody massacre at Miracle Auto Body (and - quite separately - as they organize a task force to track down the increasingly active, annoying, and embarrassing Allison Murietta), Hood - working on his own and on a hunch - becomes more than a little curious about Ms. Jones whom he eventually tracks down at her home in Valley Center, more than an hour and forty minutes away from downtown Los Angeles. When Hood and Jones get together ... well, then things in L.A. Outlaws begin getting very interesting and exciting. Meanwhile, someone known as The Bull, an unforgiving and greedy man with very few scruples but plenty of anger is eager to recover what he believes are his $450,000 in diamonds, so - wasting no time - The Bull sends out a cold-blooded killer (Lupercio Maygar) to find out what happened to his property. And with The Bull and Maygar now involved in L.A. Outlaws, things really get interesting - and dangerous! Quicker than you can say top-notch thriller, the various plotlines heat up and converge in L.A. Outlaws, and T. Jefferson Parker's latest adventure morphs into a fast-paced, pulse-pounding tale filled with passion, secrets, humor, corruption, murder - and Suzanne Elizabeth Jones (a.k.a. Allison Murietta), one of popular fiction's most charismatic protagonists. L.A. Outlaws, like Suzanne (Allison), is an absolute knockout! Don't miss it! Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Mystery books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews