I will read anything Parker writes as he's one of my favorite authors and this one is both unusual and fascinating! Lew Gale is a detective in Orange County when Bennet Tarlow is discovered dead--possibly by a mountain lion who's been seen in Laguna Beach. But when he partners with Daniela Martinez, they discover there's much more to this murder than they suspected. There's a lot of cool history about the Acjacheme tribe and the past colliding with the present!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I've read and liked a number of Jeff Parker's novels, and I've read and not liked a few more. This one falls somewhere in the middle of the range for me.

The core narrative is solid and a great read. Unfortunately, there is a sort of subplot about the travails of a single mother dealing with a wayward son that seem to me to serve no purpose at all. It starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and simply interrupts and distracts from the core plot line. Even more unfortunately, Parker further interrupts the main narrative repeatedly with lengthy meanderings concerning the spirit and history of the native Acjacheme peoples. After the first interruption, I quickly realized the irrelevance of all this palaver and skipped the remaining lectures. If you read WILD INSTINCT, I strongly recommend you do the same.

It's tough to rate this book on a star scale since Parker is, on the whole, an excellent novelist with decades of fine writing behind him. Maybe this outing was just too California for me.

I got invited to read this by the author and I checked it out but it wasn’t really my style of writing. Too dense and descriptive and I would have liked it more in first person. I thought that it had a pretty interesting premise, I just couldn’t get into it.

This book was another hit from the author. It was filled with his usual balance of mystery and suspense. Good character development was evidenced throughout. This is a book which I would recommend to those who enjoy a good mystery.

Love a book with OC as the star.. A mauled victim, a rich victim, a relentless protagonist, and lots of twists in the story path produce another hit!

A fantastic set of characters by one of my favorite authors. It definitely helps that I live in South Orange County and know most of these places (a few imagined or reimagined). Please keep these characters around!!!

This was my first book by this author, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. I prefer fast paced books and this delivered just that! Finished within 2 days, didn’t bore me, kept my attention!

Wild Instinct is written by one of my favorite authors, T. Jefferson Parker. It involves three plots as I see it. The first involves the murder of a rich businessman and is written in Parker's fine style. I liked that plot.
Second, Parker wants to give due to the spirit and history of the Acjacheme people, a native Indian tribe that was basically overrun by white settlers. He includes long readings from stories about these people. I didn't share his enthusiasm and I didn't like the interruption of the main plot to read historical information about this tribe. Sadly, their time has passed.
The third plot involves the son of one of the detectives. Her job makes it hard to keep involved in his like, so she uses an app to spy on him. The son, Jesse, is the least defined figure in the novel and the stories about him are not much more than space filler.
Thanks NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

In three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker's latest Orange County-based thriller, Wild Instinct (Minotaur Books 2025), forty-year-old Lew Gale is a Detective with the Orange County (California) Sheriffs struggling to find peace with his early career as a Marine sniper. His current assignment is to uncover who murdered the handsome charismatic scion to a wealthy real estate family who loved birds and photography as much as his father’s business. It’s a tough assignment that blends influences from politics, Indian cultural roots, and unknown forces. This constant drum of back noise makes it hard to hear truth and gets louder the deeper into the case Gale digs.

Parker is known for mixing character- and plot-driven motivations in his stories. This is no exception. Many pages are devoted to the struggle of Indian families and single parent mothers and sons trying to fulfill the dreams of parents, woven into the fabric of the story expertly with character introspection and self evaluation. Don't be surprised when you become part of the ongoing struggle. It does slow the pace of solving the murder, but becomes critical to the resolution.

Jefferson often sets his novels in Orange County California, my home town, so I can tell you he accurately captures the quintessential feeling of this California beach county. One confusion which didn't lose any stars: Parker named the male detective "Gale" and a female suspect "Norris" which made me struggle with their sex early on. One IMHO: For those who love the angst of life, you could easily give this book 5/5.

This is a complicated read with many false trails. Lots of moving parts to the storyline making it hard to follow at times. Hang in there! It does come together!

Parker delivers another solid procedural; this time a team of Orange County detectives with fairly strong backstories and very good chemistry. As usual, Parker's sense of place is great, his pacing is solid, and his scenes always work. It evokes Ed McBain in its steady movement toward a strong conclusion.

The downside is, that is ALL this is. The mystery itself is not particularly stunning, and its climax isn't cathartic. The book is a strong, well written entertainment, but it never really soars; more Spenser than Lew Archer.

Still, for lovers of crime fiction it will be a satisfying read.

I was hooked from the beginning!!
It was amazing and engaging.
I was instantly sucked in by the atmosphere and writing style.
The characters were all very well developed .
The writing is exceptional and I was hooked after the first sentence.