Three-time Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker has a new book out called, "A Thousand Steps." The new book is a stand-alone thriller, a departure from his detective series set in Fallbrook.
"A Thousand Steps" is set in Laguna Beach in the 1960s, and it forms a coming-of-age story with a deadly mystery, surrounded by surf, sand, hippies, rock and roll and in the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
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Parker joined KPBS Midday Edition on Wednesday to talk about his new novel.
"I felt compelled when I started remembering the times that I spent there as a young boy at the age of 14 approximately, and it was time for me to write another book," Parker said. "The more I thought about 1968 Laguna and the things that I saw there and heard about there and read about there, the more interested I became, and 'A Thousand Steps' kind of just presented itself as a story to me and compelled me to sit down and write it."
He said the title of the book comes from a childhood memory.
"I love that beach. It was one of the first places I saw when I was a kid going to Laguna. I'll never forget that beach," Parker said. "The first time I went there, I don't know I was probably 14, and I walked down the thousand steps to Thousand Steps Beach and I had to count them as any kid would do, and there were 220-something I remember."
Parker will be speaking and signing copies of his new book at his book launch event on Saturday, Jan. 22, at the Pala Mesa Resort in Fallbrook.
