Friday, December 28, 2007

California Girl

California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker won the 2005 Edgar Award.

from the back of the book:

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.


Very little music in this one. I hadn't realized how much I had felt oppressed by that until I realized how little -just a mention- music there was in this book. A breath of fresh air after the barrage from the previous books I've read. I'm hoping that fad is over...

This is as much the story of a family over time as it is the story of a crime solved. The interpersonal relationships are not subplots in this book but are key elements to the story of the murder. It is interesting how it all works together.

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