California Girl

"Love, lust, murder, betrayal, suffering, and redemption all parade by as a brilliant tale-spinner once again has his way with us." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Edgar Award–Winner, Best Novel of the Year


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.


"Parker's drum-tight prose and richly layered characters borrow a bit from Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled L.A. noirs as well as the more psychologically lurid novels of Dennis Lehane, but California Girl easily earns Parker his own spot on the shelf between these two masters." —Entertainment Weekly, Editor's Choice

"A masterpiece filled with intriguing, multidimensional characters, an enthralling, sweeping plot, and some of the finest writing you'll ever read." —Chicago Sun-Times

"Subtle—and effective . . . as much a family saga as it is a crime novel . . . an abundance of richly drawn characters." —San Francisco Chronicle

"An evocative trip back to the days of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, hippies, LSD, Charles Manson, peace protests, and the rising anger against the war in Vietnam. Parker perfectly captures the turbulence of the times." —Orlando Sentinel