CALIFORNIA GIRL starts out in the here and now of the year
2004 with a casual meeting of two brothers whose lives have
been entwined in a murder that took place in the mid 1960's.
Nick Becker was a green detective back then and his brother
Andy was working as a reporter while researching for his
first big novel. What should have been relatively usual
winds up with Andy's prophetic statement that propels us
back in time to the 1950's version of Orange County,
California. Andy and Nick have two other brothers, David the
minister and Clay the soldier and the Becker boys definitely
get into their share of trouble while growing up. The Vonn
brothers are one group of their protagonists and along with
the Vonn sisters, Janelle and Lynette become the catalysts
for the ensuing story. The Becker family has a strange group
of friends including members of the John Birch Society.
David Becker is being groomed to become a precursor to the
televangelist by his development of the Grove Drive-In
Church. The Becker boys have great passion for their careers
and for each other but each guard a secret from the others
that has the propensity to possibly destroy them and the
lives they have created. Their lives seem to revolve around
the burning question of who killed Janelle Vonn and why was
she murdered in such a gristly manner. As the detective of
record, Nick is busy gathering evidence which at any given
time points to still another possible suspect. There is no
shortage of people with connections to Janelle and the
search seems exhaustive. Evidence gathering in the sixties
is still rather crude but in time Nick feels confident that
he has pinpointed the prime suspect -- now to apprehend him.
Andy, the reporter, is assigned the task of writing the copy
for the ongoing investigation. Sounds simple, think again,
there is nothing simple about this case and it will keep you
guessing till the very last page.
T. Jefferson Parker wove the past and present quite
masterfully in this book. In bringing us back to the sixties
through imagery and name dropping as well as making us very
aware of the short comings of investigations done back then.
The reader is constantly reminded of what was available 36
years ago so that you don't ponder what if. The characters
jump off the page with their being so very flawed and
multidimensional -- just so human. Their problems become your
concern. Their plight becomes your worry. The resolve of the
case is stunning and rather surprising even though as a
detective/reader you will probably have your own set of
suspects. Parker's style is precise and informative without
being wordy and the culmination of facts in the book become
really important in the final outcome. Parker ties up all
the loose ends by the time you reach the end of the story
with some surprising insights.
The Orange County, California, that the Becker brothers
knew as boys is no more -- unrecognizably altered since the
afternoon in 1954 when Nick, Clay, David, and Andy rumbled
with the lowlife Vonns, while five-year-old Janelle Vonn
watched from the sidelines. The new decade has brought about
the end of the orange groves and the birth of suburban
sprawl. It is the era of Johnson, hippies, John Birchers,
and LSD. Clay becomes a casualty of a far-off jungle war.
Nick becomes a cop, Andy a reporter, David a minister. And
the decapitated corpse of teenage beauty queen Janelle Vonn
is discovered in an abandoned warehouse.
A hideous crime has touched the Beckers in ways that none of
them could have anticipated, setting three brothers on a
dangerous collision course that will change their family --
and their world -- forever.
And no one will emerge from the wreckage unscathed.
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