The Prince of Venice Beach

March 31, 2014
Nelson (Recovery Road) combines a hardboiled first-person narrative and a languid Southern California setting to establish a seductive surf noir atmosphere in the story of Robert “Cali” Callahan, a 17-year-old runaway who’s testing out a potential career as a private investigator on the streets of Venice Beach. Cali’s doing pretty well for himself: he has a rent-free treehouse to sleep in, is generally well-liked by the other denizens of the boardwalk, and can hold his own on Venice’s infamous streetball courts. When Cali starts getting quiet offers to track down persons of interest (a runaway kid here, a transient there), he’s thrilled by his early successes, but learns that not knowing where the money is coming from puts him on ethically murky ground. Cali is smart, perceptive, and fairly aware of his own shortcomings, and his strong desire to help drives this moody, fast-moving novel. Although secondary characters (especially the women in Cali’s life) aren’t quite as fully developed as he is, Cali’s romantic entanglements only add to his confusion over how to do the right thing. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House.

May 1, 2014
A teenage beach bum turns private eye in this unexpectedly sweet story about friendship and loss from the author of Paranoid Park (2006).Robert "Cali" Callahan ran away from his Nebraska foster home when he was 14. Now 17, he lives in a kind hippie's backyard treehouse in Venice Beach, Calif., roams the boardwalk on his skateboard, plays basketball and tries to avoid trouble. When he is asked by a frustrated private investigator to locate another runaway, Cali discovers a natural talent for finding people. At first he's thrilled to be earning money for nothing more than making a few innocent inquiries. But when Cali agrees to help find a wealthy missing girl named Reese Abernathy, he starts questioning the motivations of the people who are hiring him and finds himself in the middle of a dangerous game of cat and mouse. When Cali ultimately sides with his target instead of his client, the results are tragic and leave him wondering if he made the right decision. Nelson's spare style and nuanced portrayal of street kids is strongly reminiscent of the classic work of S.E. Hinton. The gritty beach setting, compelling cast of sensitively drawn secondary characters and spot-on dialogue elevate the story beyond that of a typical genre mystery.The ending hints at Cali's willingness to take on fresh cases, and readers can only hope that a new teenage private detective series is in the works. (Mystery. 12-18)

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May 1, 2014

Gr 7 Up-Robert Callahan is a 17-year-old runaway. After his father's abandonment and his mother's accidental death early on, he has experienced life as a foster child, being shuttled from one family to the next. Robert finally takes control of his destiny and escapes the harshness of Omaha, Nebraska's social service system by running away to the streets of Venice Beach, California. He's a little luckier than most runaways-instead of sleeping in alleyways and digging in garbage for food, Robert has the support of Hope Stillwell, a Venice Beach resident who allows the teen access to her home and lets him live in a tree house in her backyard. Soon, Robert's cop friend, Detective Mitchell, refers him to a private investigator trying to locate a wealthy young San Francisco runaway. After Robert helps in a successful rescue, more referrals begin to come his way, but all of them are not from the friendly detective, and all of them do not necessarily end as happily. With each new investigation Robert takes on, he is faced with new life experiences and eye-opening self-evaluations, which have him pondering the future for the first time in his life. Up until this point, Robert's kept his existence under the radar to avoid detection by authorities. Now he's thinking of a future in private investigations-with business cards and all-but, most importantly, he realizes the need to further his education and to interact more extensively with society at large. Readers will anxiously follow Robert's adolescent journey of growth in this coming-of-age novel filled with exhilarating chases and heart pounding moments.-Sabrina Carnesi, Crittenden Middle School, Newport News, VA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2014
Grades 8-11 Robert Cali Callahan is a 17-year-old runaway living on the streets of Venice Beach, surfing, playing basketball, and spending his nights in the tree house of a well-meaning local woman. Cali has a reputation of being the guy who can find anyone for a little cash, so when he is approached to help locate Reese Abernathy, the daughter of a wealthy Silicone Valley financier, he accepts, hoping to turn his side business into a real detective agency. Instead, Reese finds Cali, and after hearing her story, Cali begins to question both the motives of the people trying to find her and his own for accepting the offer. Cali is a dispassionate narrator whose determination to do the right thing without being sure what it is reveals a sensitive, street-smart kid who is, nonetheless, heartbreakingly naive. In a briskly paced novel with a noir sensibilty, Nelson (Recovery Road, 2011) exposes the dangerous reality of life on the streets without overdramatization or sentimentality.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)