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California Girl

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
"Love, lust, murder, betrayal, suffering, and redemption all parade by as a brilliant tale-spinner once again has his way with us." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Edgar Award–Winner, Best Novel of the Year
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 ushered in 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 a terrible crime touches them all in ways they could never have anticipated when the mutilated corpse of teenage beauty queen Janelle Vonn is discovered in an abandoned warehouse.
"Parker's drum-tight prose and richly layered characters borrow a bit from Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled L.A. noirs as well as the more psychologically lurid novels of Dennis Lehane, but California Girl easily earns Parker his own spot on the shelf between these two masters." —Entertainment Weekly, Editor's Choice
"A masterpiece filled with intriguing, multidimensional characters, an enthralling, sweeping plot, and some of the finest writing you'll ever read." —Chicago Sun-Times
"Subtle—and effective . . . as much a family saga as it is a crime novel . . . an abundance of richly drawn characters." —San Francisco Chronicle
"An evocative trip back to the days of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, hippies, LSD, Charles Manson, peace protests, and the rising anger against the war in Vietnam. Parker perfectly captures the turbulence of the times." —Orlando Sentinel
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 13, 2004
      Set on Parker's usual turf, this Orange County, Calif., saga is a family drama carefully wrapped around a mystery involving a murdered beauty queen. Back in 1954, the Becker brothers, David, Nick, Clay and Andy, win a fight with the wrong-side-of-the-tracks Vonn brothers at the Sunblesst orange packinghouse. After the rumble, the Vonns' little sisters, Lynette and Janelle, show up to throw rocks. Thus begins a lifelong association between three of the brothers and the two girls. In 1968, Janelle is back at the packinghouse, only now she's lying dead on the floor, her decapitated head several feet from her torso. Nick is with the county sheriff's department working his first case as lead detective. Brother Clay has been killed in Vietnam, Andy is a reporter on a local newspaper and David is a minister. Framing the occasionally glacial narrative with Nick's present-day reworking of the case, Parker (Cold Pursuit,
      etc.) introduces a wide variety of quirky period characters, from stoned-out hippies to Dick Nixon and his conservative cronies, one of whom might be Janelle's killer. Readers should think mainstream novel rather than thriller and prepare to wait patiently for the rewards offered by this intricately plotted tale. Agent, Robert Gottlieb. (Oct.)

      Forecast:
      A solid push by the publisher is an attempt to move Parker from regional to national bestseller lists, though this rather slow entry makes that a long shot. Five-city author tour.

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  • English

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