The Last King of California

October 15, 2024
Young gang members find their sense of identity within a criminal family. Familiarity withShe Rides Shotgun (2017), Harper's Edgar Award-winning debut about gang warfare in California's Inland Empire, is not necessary to follow this sequel. What is necessary is a strong stomach for graphic violence and toxic masculinity summed up by the Combine family's mantra, "Blood is love." Initiation into the family involves receiving a heart tattoo that combines ink with the blood of a murdered Combine member. At age 7, Luke Crosswhite witnessed his father, Bobby, the leader of the Combine, kick a man to death in a bowling alley parking lot. Bobby went to prison (where he remains), and Luke was sent to Colorado to live with his long-absent mother's law-abiding relatives. His uncle Del is running the Combine for Bobby--think theft and drug-dealing with occasional gang warfare thrown in--when 19-year-old Luke returns as the unlikely heir apparent, a college dropout still struggling with debilitating flashbacks to his father's crime. Luke finds himself torn. His basic decency and sensitivity are challenged by the adrenaline rush that acts of extreme machismo offer. Affection for a lovable pit bull named Manson (the novel's only joke) plays a central role in the battle within his soul, but the pull of being part of a family, however defective, is hard for the lonely outsider to resist. In contrast, Luke's childhood playmate Callie, now a small-time drug dealer, has always been part of the family's operations. She yearns to escape with her drugged-out, sweet-natured boyfriend to a life she imagines outside the gang. As Luke and Callie make fateful decisions, the larger, scarier gang Aryan Steel threatens the Combine's autonomy while California wildfires rage beyond human control. A novel in which needless deaths pile up somehow manages to be heartbreaking yet oddly hopeful, even a tad sentimental. With raw eloquence, Harper finds his characters' humanity in the context of a mostly pitiless world

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Starred review from October 7, 2024
Edgar winner Harper (Everybody Knows) combines mythic motifs and hardboiled crime tropes in this powerful California noir. After flunking out of college, 19-year-old Luke Crosswhite returns to his family’s San Bernardino compound. Twelve years earlier, Luke watched his father, crime boss Big Bobby, kill a man; scarred by the incident, Luke’s not sure he’s ready to face the past, but he’s run out of alternatives. Though Big Bobby is in prison, he continues to call the shots for the Devore Combine syndicate. When the leader of a rival gang insists that Devore pony up 10% of its ill-gotten gains in protection money, it leads to all-out war, pulling a reluctant Luke into the fray. Meanwhile, Luke’s cousin, Callie, sets in motion his plan to escape the syndicate, making a large drug purchase that goes disastrously wrong. As the stakes for Luke’s family escalate, wildfires rage across San Bernardino. Harper makes the story’s familiar elements feel exceptionally fresh, drawing each of his characters with remarkable nuance and pulling the percussive prose of Raymond Chandler into the 21st century (“Thrash metal napalm-burns from the speakers” as Luke drives home from his hotel job). Harper’s hot streak remains intact. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Assoc.