The Fallen

By: T. Jefferson Parker

Narrated by: David Colacci

My life was ordinary until three years ago when I was thrown out of a downtown hotel window. My name is Robbie Brownlaw, and I am a homicide detective for the city of San Diego. I am 29 years old.

I now have synesthesia, a neurological condition where your senses get mixed up. Sometimes when people talk to me, I see their voices as colored shapes provoked by the emotions of the speakers, not by the words themselves. I have what amounts to a primitive lie detector. After three years, I don't pay a whole lot of attention to the colors and shapes of other people's feelings, unless they don't match up with their words.

When Garrett Asplundh's body is found under a San Diego bridge, Robbie Brownlaw and his partner, McKenzie Cortez, are called on to the case. After the tragic death of his child and the dissolution of his marriage, Garrett - regarded as an honest, straight-arrow officer - left the SDPD to become an ethics investigator, looking into the activities of his former colleagues. At first his death, which takes place on the eve of a reconciliation with his ex, looks like suicide, but the clues Brownlaw and Cortez find just don't add up. With pressure mounting from the police and the city's politicians, Brownlaw fights to find the truth, all the while trying to hold on to his own crumbling marriage. Was Garrett's death an "execution" or a crime of passion, a personal vendetta or the final step in an elaborate cover-up?

©2006 T. Jefferson Parker (P)2006 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Twisty story told by homicide cop

Twisty story told by homicide cop. After falling several stories from a hotel window a cop develops synesthesia, the ability to see people’s feelings as colors when they spoke. The story IS about his investigation of the murder of a former cop who had become an ethics investigator. The solution involves an unexpected twist. The story takes place in San Diego.

Loved it

The narration was great. Glad I found this in the older selections. Will look for more from this author.

I attempted after a couple of tries

… and I finally decided to give it a listen. I am an avid fan of narrator David Colacci. I have been on a British audio streak for a long time now. Being from the U.S, I do so enjoy the Brilliant Brits. Well, “The Fallen” fell flat for me. I forwarded to the last chapter. Each to their own.

Loved it all but the end

The performer failed to give us even a brief stop at the end of the book, but went immediately into acknowledgments, so it took me a couple seconds to realize we were at the end, and I had to internally go back in my mind to find how the book ended. He could at least take the time to say “the end” !

Great Characters, story line and setting.

Love Jeff's character development. Also love his use of all the southern CA landmarks we grew up with. One of these days he needs to work Tustin High into a story. i wonder if his naming of a character April Hawley has anything to do with our classmate of the same name.
Love your stories Jeff! Hope they make you feel as good as they do the rest of us. Please keep writing.
Karen O'Connell

Good entertainment!

This was my first T. Jefferson Parker book. I don't usually choose murder mysteries but I am glad I gave this one a try. Interesting premise and very good reader.

Immediately engaging

The only bad thing about this terrific story is that it is not a series! More Robbie Brownlaw would be better. Well told, well performed...read this!

OK, but...

This book would have been much more enjoyable if two of its characters had been eliminated, or at least minimized or viewed differently by the protagonist. The adoration of his cheesy, shallow, bimbo wife Gina, and of his beloved "city", San Diego, were a little hard for me to take. I call San Diego a character because the author used it as such in the book. Come on, SD may be big for a small town, but that's really all it is. There is a blandness to the book's setting that I don't feel when I read books based in LA, SF, NY, or other major cities. And Gina - she should have been dumped her in the beginning of the book. Robbie's constant attempts at pleasing her with expensive trinkets made him look like a fool. Actually, there seemed to be too much babble throughout the book about expensive toys. I don't think I'll read anything more by TJ Parker.

The book was well performed by the excellent narrator, David Colacci.