Review: The Golden Gate (by Amy Chua)

My Rating:  3.5 stars

Amy Chua's debut novel The Golden Gate is an ambitious work of historical fiction that weaves together many threads spun around the murder of a politician named Walter Wilkinson at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, California in 1944.  Al Sullivan is the police detective on the case and he gets to work quickly, following one clue after another that mysteriously keeps leading him to the Bainbridge family (one of the wealthiest families in San Francisco) as well as another death that occurred at the same hotel 14 years ago.  As the investigation unfolds, several other possible "angles" emerge that attempt to throw Sullivan (and us as readers) off track, but of course, the truth prevails in the end.

This historical mystery was an enjoyable read overall, but due to the broad scope of issues (social, political, and everything else in between) that Chua tries to cover here, it felt like the story was all over the place at times. Chua also incorporated a lot of historical facts throughout the story, many of which were fascinating (especially to a history buff like me), but didn't seem to have much relevance to the plot.  In fact, there were moments where I felt like I was reading a history textbook rather than mystery novel (which felt even more awkward considering the sections with the most historical facts were largely narrated from Sullivan's first person perspective).  There were also large segments where Sullivan would go into spiels relating to his background — again, interesting, but felt kind of off-topic since much of it didn't seem to have anything to do with the case he was investigating.

The part of the story's structure that I thought worked really well was the deposition from the Bainbridge family's matriarch Genevieve, which was interspersed throughout the narrative. The way that these sections were written — with just enough information yet not revealing too much — combined with the other clues from the investigation, had me wondering and second- guessing certain things (as a mystery novel should).

Overall, this one was definitely entertaining, but I think it would've been more effective if the irrelevant historical facts were left out, as this distracted from the story at times.  With mysteries / thrillers, I prefer for them to be more tightly-plotted — this one went off on too many tangents, which made the plot harder to follow.  This was a good first effort though and I appreciate all the research that Chua put into this one.  I actually didn't realize until I read up on the author afterwards that Chua also wrote the nonfiction book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother — her 2011 memoir that I've had on my TBR for ages but still have not yet read.  I guess this is as good a reminder as any to find time to get to that one at some point.

Received ARC from Minotaur Books via NetGalley.