When I first read T. Jefferson Parker’s Laguna Heat back in 1985, I had recently moved to Santa Cruz and was ecstatic to be living in a small beach town again — because I grew up in South Orange County (specifically in and around Laguna Beach) and graduated high school in 1965. So I know the area well (at least the area as it was then, because overdevelopment has ruined most of the good things about the area). Anyway, I have read all of Parker’s books since then, loving many and being “meh” about a few…but I always like the ones set in Orange County, so I was extremely happy to receive a copy of A Thousand Steps from Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The title got me instantly, as I remember the Thousand Steps beach and as I read, I was transported back to Laguna in the 60s. The title refers both to a location and to the effort made by the protagonist, Matt Antony. Like Matt, I lived in a “drafty and uninsulated one-bath box held together by loud plumbing and temperamental electricity.” Matt is sixteen and struggling to get by. He survives on money earned from his paper route and frequently eats fish he catches in the ocean. His mother has a bad weed habit (plentiful in the area in the 60s), and his ex-cop father is no longer around. When his sister disappears right around the time the body of a young female washes up on the beach, Matt tries to get the police interested, but the town sees lots of runaways and the police sort of blow him off. It’s a place where the police don’t really believe or trust the hippies, and most of the locals don’t trust the police.
Matt volunteers at a head shop where he hears gossip and learns about weirdness taking place at a guru’s retreat up in the hills. When he goes to check it out, he “…works his way uphill and takes a break at his highest house on Bluebird Canyon Drive.” I was transported back in time as I lived at the very end of Bluebird Canyon in the mid-sixties. The story follows Matt’s efforts to find out what happened to his sister, and the book is both a thriller and a coming of age story, immersing the reader in an unusual small city at an incredible time.
Great character development, terrific presentation of a real place in a real time of upheaval and change, and a strong plot. I LOVED it. Five stars.