California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"'Listen to me, Nick. Everything we thought about Janelle Vonn was wrong.'"

San Clemente, California, summer 2004. 66-year-old Nick Becker meets his four years younger brother. "An old cop and an old reporter." Andy tells Nick, the cop, that they did not know the truth about momentous events that happened in 1968. This is a wonderful setup of a wonderful novel. T. Jefferson Parker's California Girl deservedly received the Edgar Award for the Best Novel in 2005. To me it is one of the best mysteries I have ever read. Not only is it a first-rate crime novel but also a great book about the 1960s Southern California. For once I have to agree with the blurb on the cover which screams "A gripping, atmospheric saga... An unforgettable book." Indeed. If not for the slightly bungled ending I might have even considered the extremely rare maximum rating.

The novel tells the story of the four Becker brothers whose lives were forever intertwined with the lives of the Vonns - three brothers, two younger sisters, one of them Janelle. We meet the kids in 1954, next to a packinghouse in Tustin, California, as the boys fight - the Beckers versus the Vonns - and the girls watch the fight. A powerful, unforgettable scene! Next, the author takes us to 1960 and then 1963 to portray the lives of orange growers community around Tustin, a sort of microcosm of Southern California. Evocative and masterfully written passages capture the sense of the times and make the readers feel they were present to witness the events.

Most of the plot happens in October 1968 when Nick is a freshly minted Homicide Detective in the Laguna PD and catches his first case. Andy is a newspaperman on an Orange County paper. Vietnam War rages in the background. The cultural revolution of the late 1960s has already begun. Real people from these tumultuous times - Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon, Charles Manson - appear on the pages, seamlessly woven into the tangle of fictitious events.

Several passages in the book will impress the readers with their realism and depth of psychological and sociological observation. Reverend Becker, one of the four brothers, is getting blackmailed by an FBI agent who wants him to become the agency's informant about the budding labor movement in California. In an arts store in Laguna Dr. Leary talks about "Coming Together in the Psychedelic Age," toiling on his signature task of expanding consciousness. The conversation between Reverend Becker and a "televangelism guru" exposes the unavoidable entanglement of religion and business.

I believe one of the reasons why the novel is so believable and compelling is that the author worked in his youth as a journalist for several Orange County papers, like The Newport Ensign. It's not difficult to guess that Mr. Parker writes about himself when, as Andy, he says

"All he ever wanted to do was write a decent book someday and stick by the people he loved. Not accomplishing either of those, he thought."

Well, Mr. Parker has certainly accomplished the first goal. California Girl is way more than just a decent book. If not for the overwrought ending, with its truly idiotic gimmick, it would be quite close to a great California novel.

Four stars.

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