PIONEER: T. Jefferson Parker was one of...

PIONEER: T. Jefferson Parker was one of the first to use Orange County as a mystery setting, and he’s still at it. First came “Laguna Heat,” then “Little Saigon.” A third is due this summer, set in Newport Beach. . . . But forget the sunshine. “It’s a very dark book,” Parker says. “It doesn’t really deal with the glitzy set very much. It’s more centered among the blue-collar working people of the Balboa Peninsula area down by the pier.”