NONE OF YOU ARE SAFE
“KILLER”: Jack Queen has been exonerated and freed from prison thanks to retired LAPD officer Cato Hightower. But when guilt gnaws at Jack, he admits: “I actually did it.” To which Hightower responds: “Yeah, no kidding.” You see, the ex-cop has a special job in mind for the ex-con…
THE GIRL DETECTIVE: Fifteen-year-old Matilda Finnerty has been handed a potential death sentence in the form of a leukemia diagnosis. But that’s not going to stop her from tackling the most important mystery of her life: Is her father guilty of murder?
GENE JEANIE: Jeanie Hightower mends family trees for a living, but the genealogist is unable to repair her own marriage. And her soon-to-be ex may have entangled her in a scheme that has drawn the bloody wrath of…
THE BEAR: A prolific serial killer who disappeared forty years ago, who is only now emerging from hibernation when the conditions are just right. And this time, the California Bear is not content to hunt in the shadows…
There are books you read slow, and it feels like you’re never going to get to the end. Then there are books you read slow and you never want to get to the end. CALIFORNIA BEAR was that rare book for me that I felt like I only wanted to read a chapter at a time, because I was just deliriously in love with this book from the jump. Oof.
This will for sure be one of my favorite reads of 2024, and while it’s an extremely unconventional crime fiction novel, it’s without question one of the best in the genre I’ve ever read.
I’ve been kind of geeking out over Mulholland Books (the mystery/thriller imprint of Hachette Book Group), not unlike how I geek out over Orbit (the SFF imprint of Hachette), which is how I think I first heard of CALIFORNIA BEAR; just by following the Mulholland Instagram account.
Something about this one just grabbed my attention. Certainly the cover is really cool & evocative, but the synopsis of this sounded so unique.
And that’s really the best way to describe this book. I’ve mentioned it a bunch on here, but I spent a huge chunk of my twenties ravenously reading as much crime fiction as I could. The last ten or so years I’ve mostly been reading fantasy/sci-fi/horror, but I’ve definitely been feeling more & more drawn back to crime/mysteries/thrillers. All this to say that I’ve never read anything quite like CALIFORNIA BEAR, and Duane Swierczynski made a fan out of me in one book.
The Girl Detective has a name, and I believe it’s even used in the synopsis. And her name is used in the book as well. But for the majority of the time, she is referred to as The Girl Detective, and I think that’s just how I’ll refer to her in this book. This is a multi-POV book, but I think in so many ways, it’s The Girl Detective’s story.
She’s fourteen, and has been recently diagnosed with leukemia. Almost the entirety of The Girl Detective’s story takes place in her hospital room. She’s a bit of an amateur sleuth, and she’s working on her biggest case yet: her father.
Her father, Jack Queen, is known as “Killer.” He served time for a revenge killing he may or may not be guilty of. Either way, he’s been freed from prison by an ex-cop named Hightower.
Hightower enlists Jack’s (very reluctant) help in tracking down a notorious serial killer known as the California Bear. The Bear has been inactive for decades, but is eyeing a return to form, albeit in a much-changed Los Angeles from the one he terrorized in his heyday.
Everything & everyone in this book kind of connects in ways you won’t see coming, as Swierczynski weaves a tightly knit masterpiece out of seemingly disconnected elements. Oof, this book fucking blew me away.
There is something so endearing & quirky & just plain unexpected about CALIFORNIA BEAR. It’s definitely a book that shines a light on the way we “consume” serial killer content, and I think it’s a book that asks us to just…pause, and consider the real-life trauma that’s associated with all these stories.
Having read (and watched) I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK, and also reading an interview with Swierczynski where he mentions the book, it’s plain to see that the California Bear is deeply inspired by the Golden State Killer. Getting a look inside the mind of a character like that is…a profoundly disturbing experience, for sure.
There’s another aspect to this book that I can’t leave out of this review; The Girl Detective is partially inspired by Swierczynski’s own daughter, Evie, who passed away from leukemia in 2018. This character, and ultimately this entire book, is such a moving & lovely tribute, and also the potential start of a trilogy (another tidbit from this interview). And in the author’s own words, “the Girl Detective will never die.”
So while some of the things I’ve mentioned may make it seem like this is a serious, somber book, it really is anything but. This book is absurd amounts of fun, wacky as hell, and frequently hilarious. There’s a general sense of zaniness to some of the characters that had me thinking of some of Carl Hiaasen’s books (well, that and the fact that I was in Florida recently).
It’s the relationship between The Girl Detective & Jack that really won me over. In a way, they are kind of learning how to interact with one another…there’s been some physical & subsequently emotional distance, but there’s so much love there between them. There’s such an authentic, tender, and loose vibe between these two characters. They are sarcastic with one another in a way that’s only possible between two people who really treasure each other, and their relationship is honestly such a vibrant, beautiful thing on the page.
I have been flailing & falling behind miserably on reviews, but I badly wanted to get some thoughts down for this one. CALIFORNIA BEAR was a book that I just could not wait to crack open each night. The chapters are generally short, but I honestly found myself just reading one or two or three per night (and then reading a different book), just to prolong the experience of reading this. I fucking adored everything about this book…one of my favorites of the year, and I can’t wait to check out more of Swierczynski’s work!
Grimdark Dad 