CALIFORNIA GIRL starts out in the here and now of the year 2004 with a casual meeting of two brothers whose lives have been entwined in a murder that took place in the mid 1960's. Nick Becker was a green detective back then and his brother Andy was working as a reporter while researching for his first big novel. What should have been relatively usual winds up with Andy's prophetic statement that propels us back in time to the 1950's version of Orange County, California. Andy and Nick have two other brothers, David the minister and Clay the soldier and the Becker boys definitely get into their share of trouble while growing up. The Vonn brothers are one group of their protagonists and along with the Vonn sisters, Janelle and Lynette become the catalysts for the ensuing story. The Becker family has a strange group of friends including members of the John Birch Society. David Becker is being groomed to become a precursor to the televangelist by his development of the Grove Drive-In Church. The Becker boys have great passion for their careers and for each other but each guard a secret from the others that has the propensity to possibly destroy them and the lives they have created. Their lives seem to revolve around the burning question of who killed Janelle Vonn and why was she murdered in such a gristly manner. As the detective of record, Nick is busy gathering evidence which at any given time points to still another possible suspect. There is no shortage of people with connections to Janelle and the search seems exhaustive. Evidence gathering in the sixties is still rather crude but in time Nick feels confident that he has pinpointed the prime suspect -- now to apprehend him. Andy, the reporter, is assigned the task of writing the copy for the ongoing investigation. Sounds simple, think again, there is nothing simple about this case and it will keep you guessing till the very last page.

T. Jefferson Parker wove the past and present quite masterfully in this book. In bringing us back to the sixties through imagery and name dropping as well as making us very aware of the short comings of investigations done back then. The reader is constantly reminded of what was available 36 years ago so that you don't ponder what if. The characters jump off the page with their being so very flawed and multidimensional -- just so human. Their problems become your concern. Their plight becomes your worry. The resolve of the case is stunning and rather surprising even though as a detective/reader you will probably have your own set of suspects. Parker's style is precise and informative without being wordy and the culmination of facts in the book become really important in the final outcome. Parker ties up all the loose ends by the time you reach the end of the story with some surprising insights.

Book Summary

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.