There's actually a good story here, which in the hands of a decent writer might have been turned into something really good. Unlike his namesake Robert, this Parker's writing is cringingly bad, with cartoon characters and heavy handed lines. His FBI is political fantasy, both in terms of characters (yeah right, a Jew, woman and WASP), character and politics (what happened to the FBI involved in 'dirty tricks,' assassination of civil rights figures and unlawful and warrantless surveillance?). When I read Parker's first novel, Laguna Heat, I said to myself, "mediocre local (Laguna Beach) author." This, his fifth, showed not much had changed.