California Girl: A Novel - Softcover

Parker, T. Jefferson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060562374 ISBN 13: 9780060562373

Publisher: HarperTorch, 2005

Synopsis

The times, they are a-changin' . . .

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.

About this title

About the Author:

T. Jefferson Parker is the bestselling author of seventeen novels, including the Edgar® Award winners California Girl and Silent Joe. Alongside Dick Francis and James Lee Burke, he is one of only three writers who has won the Edgar® Award for Best Novel more than once. Parker lives with his family in Southern California.

From AudioFile:

Parker's twelfth novel is a family saga and whodunit set against the turbulent '60s. The Becker brothers grew up among the orange groves of Southern California, brawling and scrapping with the low-class Vonn boys through most of the 1950s. By 1967, Janelle, the tomboyish little sister of the Vonn boys, has grown into a cover-girl beauty with a tragic edge. When her decapitated body is found in an abandoned orange-packing plant, the Becker brothers struggle to find the truth amid conflicting politics and family secrets. Patrick G. Lawlor reads the novel with a precise deliberation that at first seems stiffly at odds with the sunny setting of the story. But as the novel proceeds, Lawlor loosens and the book takes on a life if its own. Dotted with cameos by Richard Nixon, Timothy Leary, and even a young Charles Manson, CALIFORNIA GIRL is a beautiful, moving, and memorable novel. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperTorch
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060562374
• ISBN 13: 9780060562373
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 396