It’s definitely a mystery –  the Prologue is the deposition of Genevieve Bainbridge concerning the involvement of her three granddaughters in a murder. Then in Chapter 1 the story jumps back to 1930 and the first murder where the body of an 8-year old girl is  found in the pile of linens  at the end of the laundry chute.   

The Golden Gate 
By Amy Chua 
2023. 13h 18m
Read by Robb Moreira, Suzanne Toren, Tim Campbell
Rating – A+/ historical fiction mystery  
(CA. 1930s to after WWII). 

Chapter 2 is 1944 again with has Detective Al Sullivan remembering his childhood n the lobby of the same hotel where this time a prominent businessman-politician has been murdered in his room – then again in another room.  (? – yes.) But actually although there are two very distinct murders, they’re wound together so it’s really one mystery.  

So it is a mystery, but it’s more than that, It’’s historical fiction and includes a lot of California history mainly in Berkeley in the San Francisco East Bay Area, between the years of 1930 and 1944.  Yes, there are several characters of Chinese-American descent in common with Amy Chua, the author so there’s some Chinese history in there as well 

The protagonist and frequent 1st person narrator (in the 1944 scenes which is most of the book) is Detective Al Sullivan whose father was Mexican and who helpfully speaks fluent Spanish. He has a young niece whose mother is an addict, so Miriam tails Al instead of going to school This is a wonderfully light touch for the novel which is primarily a bit on the noir side.  

 It’s really quite good until it “seems to” get a bit far-fetched with Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in there for a bit, (some could be true) … but Chua manages to work it all in.  The only thing which really bothered me was that the protagonist, Detective Al Sullivan, says “Miss” or “Ma’am” or sometimes “Sir” way too often.  

Overall I enjoyed the read.