California Girl: A Novel

Parker, T. Jefferson

ISBN 10: 1585475653 ISBN 13: 9781585475650

Publisher: Center Point Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

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.

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: Center Point Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1585475653
• ISBN 13: 9781585475650
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 464