California Girl

A Plus for T. Jefferson Parker's incredible "California Girl." Stylish and engaging, it transports you back to 1968 in Orange County (and up to present day)...again mixing real life characters (Dick Nixon, Tim Leary, Charles Manson) with a fictional cast of vividly sketched characters. The three Becker brothers (a cop, a crime reporter and a minister) have an intense commitment to finding the truth about a decapitated friend from their teenage years. Their search for the facts leads to compromise, concessions and exposure of the brothers' secrets. It is a subtle, sophisticated, cerebral novel with justice the overruling topic...no matter how long it may take. A well-crafted look back at a period of time that fashioned a generation told in a most intriguing manner. As good as any book I have read this year.

I don't understand why Mr. Parker's books seem to be so underrated by the so-called professional book critics. He is right up there with any modern mystery writer. The plot of California Girl has already been discussed, so I won't repeat it, but the mood of this book is engrossing and the characters seem like real people. I highly recommend this book and any T. Jefferson Parker book!

In 1960s Southern California, Janelle Vonn is a girl who seems to be overcoming a tragic past. Sexually abused, drug-addicted, she rose above those problems to become a beauty queen, then a police informant. Alas, the beautiful woman is found in an abandoned orange packing house, raped and decapitated. Janelle's life and those of her family members are inextricably bound to another family, the Beckers. Her death will come to affect each of them in a profound way. Nick is the young homicide detective given his first murder. Many are out to prove he's not up to the task of finding Janelle's killer. Andy is the ambitious reporter determined to uncover the truth and get the scoop, which puts him in a delicate situation with his cop brother. David is the minister who once salvaged Janelle's life, pulling her away from drugs and abuse. He has secrets that, if exposed, might ruin his reputation, his church and his family. Then there are the Becker parents, rabid John Birchers, who become unwitting pawns as an FBI agent with an axe to grind uses Janelle's murder to manipulate guilty and innocent alike. As is to be expected in a T. Jefferson Parker novel, the characters are drawn to perfection and the setting comes to live so vividly that, as someone who remembers the sixties, I found myself recalling things from that era that aren't even in the book. The story was lively, and each time I thought I knew what was going on, the plot twisted again. If I have one complaint, it's that a lot of real, famous people flitted in and out of the book for no real reason. The Becker parents were friends with Richard Nixon; Janelle hung out with Timothy Leary; one of the brothers had a fight with Charles Manson. The parade of famous characters started to feel like it should have been in Forrest Gump. And there were a few other wink-wink-nod-nod predictions about the "future" that tended to pull me out of the story. But these are miniscule concerns. I still ignored work, TV, and sleep to finish this one.

T. Jefferson Parker is one of those writers who quietly and incrementally has been building a loyal following. This hasn't been easy, since Parker has more often than not eschewed the creation of a recurring character. While three of his novels (THE BLUE HOUR, BLACK LIGHT and BLACK WATER) have featured detective Merci Rayborn, most of his books have been stand-alone works, with Parker choosing to let each of his novels rise or fall on its own merits. The result, deliberately or otherwise, is that one truly never knows what is going to happen in a T. Jefferson Parker novel. The only certainty that one has upon cracking the binding of a new Parker book is that it will make that reader's "Best Novel" list for that particular year. CALIFORNIA GIRL is no exception to this rule. It is a story that spans four decades, from 1960 to the present. The primary focus of the novel, however, is 1968. The setting is southern California, the site of a cultural and political maelstrom that continues to have ramifications to this day. The Becker brothers have taken different vocational paths: one is a homicide detective, one a reporter, and one a minister. Yet their paths are going to cross, and dramatically so, when the mutilated body of Janelle Vonn is discovered in an abandoned warehouse. Vonn was a woman who seemed doomed to a bad end almost from the day she was born, and the crowd that she ran with --- druggies, surfers and musicians --- fed into her seeming penchant for self-destruction. Each of the Becker brothers had their own unique tie, past or present, to Vonn, and thus each tries in his own separate way to find her murderer and bring him to justice. Parker captures the southern California era of the late 1960s perfectly, and anyone who lived through it will feel a number of familiar tugs while reading CALIFORNIA GIRL. Parker gets those all-important secondary details down nicely --- I had forgotten all about Sugar Rice Crinkles, and would love a bowlful right about now --- making the evocation of the era all the more real. More importantly, however, this is a meticulously crafted mystery, a masterfully told tale of love and passion gone wrong and ultimately made right. CALIFORNIA GIRL is a haunting work, one that provides a satisfying ending in lieu of a happy one. As with the majority of Parker's novels, there will not be a sequel here, but one is not necessary. It stands alone, and well. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

The Becker and Vonn families share a history that goes back years starting when they rumbled in the old packinghouse because a member of the former threw a hat belonging to the latter to a dog. When the Beckers apologized for the incident, they noticed that five years old Janelle Vonn had a black eye. Years later Janette attended a sermon given by David Becker. Afterward she told David and his two brothers, police officer Nick and reporter Andy, that her siblings forced her to have sex with them. Nick was able to get her siblings arrested and the Becker clan tried to keep Janellee safe. Nick arrives at that same packinghouse to lead his first homicide investigation, the decapitation of Janellee. As he digs deeper, his two brothers feed him information, which leads to a suspect in Mexico. Across the border a shoot out occurs leaving eight dead and Nick severely injured. Still he thinks he has an open and shut case, but Andy thinks otherwise. CALIFORNIA GIRL is not the author's ultra dark and foreboding crime thriller though it is bleak, but instead is an intriguing police procedural. Readers come to know the goodness of the Beckers especially since the tale is predominantly told from the perspective of the three brothers (and the badness of the Vonns). This contrast turns into a two edge sword as the rivalry causes adrenaline pumping suspense, but the extremes are too simplistic; then again perhaps if the Vonns told the tale the magnetic poles would switch. T. Jefferson Parker provides an action packed cerebral crime thriller starring a trio of likable siblings. Harriet Klausner