PALOS VERDES BLUE, the 11th novel in John Shannon’s excellent and criminally unheralded Jack Liffey series is, like most of its predecessors, a literate, insightful, powerful and involving story. Once again, Shannon takes us to the slightly lesser celebrated sections of Southern California and exposes the often ugly realities behind the shimmering facades. And once again, it should be considered essential reading.
Jack Liffey, still the professional but unlicensed locater of missing children, is called by his ex-wife to call upon a friend of hers. So he ventures to the southern coastal, mostly upscale village of Palos Verdes to meet Helen Hostetler. Her high-school-aged daughter, Blaine, has been missing for several days.
Taking on the case, Liffey learns that Blaine was better known to her friends as Blue, a nickname she earned from her passionate activities to protect the endangered species of butterfly known as the Palos Verdes Blue. But an altogether different activity might have resulted in Blue’s disappearance. Liffey discovers that she was sympathetic to the Mexican migrants illegally employed in construction and housekeeping jobs in the area, many of whom live in cardboard campsites in the woods just north of the town.
Several of her classmates are surfers, who jealously keep outsiders away from their beach turf. One is known as Twitch, a renowned Bayboy surfer who suddenly finds his life crumbling around him when he discovers he is HIV-positive. But when Blue is suspected of bringing food to the migrant campsites, her name is brought before the Black Ops, a group of violent young racist reactionaries bent on keeping Mexicans out of the state.
One Black Ops member, a slightly older surfer known as Ledge, tries to recruit Twitch into his ranks. But Twitch, already uncertain of his future, is also torn by his noticing of one young Mexican worker who shows an unusual attraction to and aptitude for surfing.
Things get even more complicated when Liffey’s own high schooler daughter, Maeve, once again tries to assist her father without his knowing. But Maeve is constantly distracted by her own evolving sexuality, which causes her to almost forget about finding Blue and puts her own life in danger.
Then Liffey, after rescuing the young Mexican surfer from an abrupt deportation, is lead back to Palos Verdes and learns what may be the sad truth about Blue from Twitch. But outside, Ledge threatens a violent attack in retaliation for what he sees as Twitch’s betrayal.
That Shannon is able to hold all these disparate characters and storylines together is proof enough of his impressive narrative capacities. But he also manages to get under each character’s skin so economically and effectively that we are as swept up in their thoughts and emotions as we are the mystery of Blue. Shannon uses letter fragments to reveal the inner expressions of his two surfers, and miraculously, keeps this technique from becoming stale. The rest of the cast — including Liffey’s cop girlfriend, Maeve and Liffey himself — express their thoughts in the more traditional, but no less involving manner, as they get deeper into the stark economic extremes of the beautiful Pacific Coast locales.
Liffey is as existentially motivated and devoted to his personal ideals as any P.I. who ever followed down Raymond Chandler’s mean streets. But over the years, Shannon has proven that those mean streets cover far more ground — literally and figuratively — than Los Angeles. And in PALOS VERDES BLUE, they include rolling hills and sunny beaches that hold both allure and danger.
It bears repeating until it’s no longer necessary: Shannon is among the finest, most perceptive and intelligent crime authors working today. If you are not reading him, you should. —Alan Cranis
Buy it at Amazon.
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE DEVILS OF BAKERSFIELD by John Shannon
Related posts:
- The Devils of Bakersfield
- The Deep Blue Alibi
- Mr. Monk and the Blue Flu
- The Blue Hammer
- Mystery Writers of America Presents The Blue Religion: New Stories About Cops, Criminals, and the Chase
