California Girl: A Novel

I like mysteries where the "who dunnit" comes in like the tide and rolls out leaving the characters living a believable life in a period rendered with nuance and authenticity. This book is right up there with Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" as a great American novel. Some of the effects brought off by the pure quality of the writing are simply astounding. Mr. Parker is that rare writer who wants to leave you a story you won't ever forget.

I read this as part of a project to read all the Edgar Best Novel readers in order from the beginning. This was the winner for 2005. Like Parker's earlier Edgar winner, Silent Joe, California Girl is set in Orange County and brought home even more than the earlier book that Orange County is not Los Angeles.
There are a lot of ways one could describe California Girl. It's a story about two families, the Beckers and the Vonns, and how they intersect and affect each other's lives. It's definitely a story of the changes in America, and specifically Orange County, from the 50s through the 60s and onward. Richard Nixon and Charles Manson make brief appearances, as does Timothy Leary. It's also the story of three brothers - a clergyman, a journalist, and a cop - trying to love and support each other and be honest men in spite of their own human frailties and the compromises they sometimes have to make.
I have a hard time reading Parker's books. They evoke corruption so well I almost have to hold my nose - even this book, which was not really about corruption, has a character who makes a fortune from a cleaner made of rotten oranges. Parker's world is not a world I want to visit often. Although his characters enjoy the beauty and good weather of Southern California, they are also surrounded by urban sprawl and commercial ugliness (not to mention some extremely right-wing characters and others who are just generally unpleasant.) In some ways Parker's books remind me of Donna Leon's Guido Brunetti novels. But although Brunetti goes on beating his head against the wall of bureaucracy and corruption that confronts him at the end of nearly every book, he has the many compensations of Venice to console him. Parker's Orange County doesn't seem like a good place to live, but it's a place we need to know about, and the stories he tells about it are worth hearing. So even though in many ways I didn't "like" this book, I would highly recommend it.

I think this book falls neatly into that category of well written stories that weren't particularly written for me. I can't fault Parker on a book that has so many characters that it could easily have stumbled, yet he manages to ably paint a lot of contrasting personalities. Hey, I didn't live in the US in the 60s, but he seems to have made this background work well. The structure of centring around one family works to tie lots of strands together, and the narrative moves comfortably between, particularly, the journalist and the cop brothers.

What's not to like? So much to go wrong, and a neat trick that it didn't.

Like I say, this is more a personal reaction - I don't deny that it's a good book. I didn't particularly want to put the book down when I was reading it, yet neither did I have any particularly strong urge to pick it up again. Some of it may be cultural - perhaps others could relate more to the family and context. Nothing soared for me, particularly with the dialogue and narration, and having been spoiled with Chandler, that matters for me in this genre. I suppose I could have said the same for The Fallen, my introduction to Parker, but I enjoyed that more for the individuality and chivalry of the narrator. Maybe that's part of it too: Parker has done more than just create a crime story, but where he's gone to do did not particularly resonate with me. I suspect it was well targeted elsewhere, and resonated effectively with others.

It is the summer of love, Vietnam and the hippie movement are in full swing.The smell of incense and California Oranges are in the air. The denizens of Southern California are in a tailspin over the grisly death of a Play Boy Bunny.

The 3 Becker Brothers are especially saddened and confused. They have known this girl since she was small. At first they are 99 percent sure who the killer is. Their careers each have them covering this case, and the more investigate it,the the murkier the whole business becomes.

This was very interesting as the brothers tell you what is going on in their lives and how they are adjusting to the cultural upheaval. The characters are well developed and you can feel their emotions and disatisfaction with life.
Famous people drop in( Such as Timothy Leary and Richard Nixon) and you learn obscure trivia about them and vintage California history as well. I had no idea California used to do so much in the orange business.