California Girl
by T. Jefferson Parker
HarperTorch
Having grown up in Southern California as a teenager, and during the time that T. Jefferson Parker visits in California Girl, I found it to be a fun read. In fact, this novel is better than many in the mystery genre, and Parker collected an Edgar Award for this outing.
It involves a family of brothers, the Beckers, who move into different fields as adults, but who are thrown into the midst of a mystery--who killed Janelle Vonn, a young woman that they knew as a small girl growing up. What Parker does best is give his characters enough personality and background that we come to like them and care about their situations. Andy is a reporter trying to follow the story, Nick is the cop trying to solve the crime, and David, who is a minister, becomes a bit of a suspect as he has had connections to Janelle as an adult and just prior to her death.
While Parker describes the Southern California milieu well, he does an even better job of creating a sense of menace from bad guys, a sense of the 1960s counterculture and drug dropouts, the racist undertones of America, and even a bit of the history of the times. He even tosses in a fight with a budding musician named Charlie Manson.
This book sent me to other titles by Parker, and I will write another commentary on one in the near future. California Girl is worth checking out.
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