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The Last King of California
This stirring and brutal bildungsroman tells the story of young Luke Crosswhite, who after years apart from his criminal family returns to their flock – deep in the California desert. Luke’s father is serving time for a murder that Luke himself witnessed; now, his uncle vies for power and rival biker gangs encroach on the family’s various criminal enterprises.
A sensitive boy grown hard man, Luke navigates the vicious pressures of “home” and the loyalties to his old friend, Callie, who has hatched a scheme with her boyfriend, Pretty Baby, to escape the control of the gang called the Combine. Hanging over these desperate, lonesome parties is the gang’s motto, tattooed indelibly across the heart: Blood Is Love.
Now available for the first time in America, The Last King of California is a story of the West unlike any you will read.
A sensitive boy grown hard man, Luke navigates the vicious pressures of “home” and the loyalties to his old friend, Callie, who has hatched a scheme with her boyfriend, Pretty Baby, to escape the control of the gang called the Combine. Hanging over these desperate, lonesome parties is the gang’s motto, tattooed indelibly across the heart: Blood Is Love.
Now available for the first time in America, The Last King of California is a story of the West unlike any you will read.
290 pages, Paperback
First published September 29, 2022
174 people are currently reading
7220 people want to read
About the author
Jordan Harper
30 books1,007 followersJordan Harper is the Edgar-Award winning author of SHE RIDES SHOTGUN, THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA, EVERYBODY KNOWS and the short story collection LOVE AND OTHER WOUNDS. He lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a writer and producer for television.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 265 reviews
December 14, 2022
fulfilling my 2022 goal to read one book each month that was not published in my country that i wanted badly enough to have a copy shipped to me from abroad and then...never read.
good lord, this book was everything i wanted and needed. i have no idea why it didn't get a u.s. release date, when he's an american author, when he has a totally different book coming out here next month (Everybody Knows)*, when i have been craving a book that would nail my slippery brain to it for months now. if i could still review, i would, but i am still trying to claw my way back into the spirit. this book deserves a better karen to review it.
* and i double-checked that it wasn't just THIS book with a different title, which was the case with both of his previous books.
good lord, this book was everything i wanted and needed. i have no idea why it didn't get a u.s. release date, when he's an american author, when he has a totally different book coming out here next month (Everybody Knows)*, when i have been craving a book that would nail my slippery brain to it for months now. if i could still review, i would, but i am still trying to claw my way back into the spirit. this book deserves a better karen to review it.
* and i double-checked that it wasn't just THIS book with a different title, which was the case with both of his previous books.
December 9, 2024
Breaking Bad meets Cormac McCarthy in the dusty Inland Empire...after getting blown away by the last Jordan Harper novel A Lesson In Violence just over a year ago (known by the infinitely better title She Rides Shotgun in the US), I was desperate to get a hold of this asap. Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance copy.
Well, it certainly doesn't disappoint. Some killer prose and style, but what truly sells the story is the depth of the characters. There are some hardscrabble polished gems of sentences here on a par with Cormac as mentioned:
"The sky above them is so full of stars it feels like a cage."
"Freedom's something you can have by yourself. Power needs somebody to piss on."
"She watches television at night, rich women screaming at each other and throwing drinks. She thinks on how strange and soft our blood sport has become."
"Palm trees sway and burn like the torches of an angry mob."
When the story has to move, it mooooves, with the jumped up kinetic energy of an Ellroy novel. But...the book it reminds me the most of is Tapping The Source by Kem Nunn. This is a coming of age story in a harsh and unforgiving world.
If you're a fan of top-shelf crime fiction, then you know I've been dropping some big names as a comparison. But if you're a fan of Jordan Harper, then you already know that it is earned.
The combo of the peckerwood inland California setting and Shakespearean family dynamics is reminiscent of Sons of Anarchy, but this book has way more heart (quite literally) and way less cartoonish violence. But there is violence. Brutal, gnarly, and affecting. Some of it verges on Cronenberg body horror, especially toward the end as the story races to its fiery inevitable conclusion. This is not a book for the faint of heart.
The only 'criticism' I can think of is that I didn’t enjoy this as much as She Rides Shotgun . . . but now I’m not even sure that’s true. The story and the general vibe of this book is still percolating in my mind, especially the ending. Harper knows how to finish a novel on the right note.
To quote Elmore Leonard: ““F--king endings, man, they weren't as easy as they looked.”
Absolutely essential. I’ll be surprised if I read a better novel this year.
Well, it certainly doesn't disappoint. Some killer prose and style, but what truly sells the story is the depth of the characters. There are some hardscrabble polished gems of sentences here on a par with Cormac as mentioned:
"The sky above them is so full of stars it feels like a cage."
"Freedom's something you can have by yourself. Power needs somebody to piss on."
"She watches television at night, rich women screaming at each other and throwing drinks. She thinks on how strange and soft our blood sport has become."
"Palm trees sway and burn like the torches of an angry mob."
When the story has to move, it mooooves, with the jumped up kinetic energy of an Ellroy novel. But...the book it reminds me the most of is Tapping The Source by Kem Nunn. This is a coming of age story in a harsh and unforgiving world.
If you're a fan of top-shelf crime fiction, then you know I've been dropping some big names as a comparison. But if you're a fan of Jordan Harper, then you already know that it is earned.
The combo of the peckerwood inland California setting and Shakespearean family dynamics is reminiscent of Sons of Anarchy, but this book has way more heart (quite literally) and way less cartoonish violence. But there is violence. Brutal, gnarly, and affecting. Some of it verges on Cronenberg body horror, especially toward the end as the story races to its fiery inevitable conclusion. This is not a book for the faint of heart.
The only 'criticism' I can think of is that I didn’t enjoy this as much as She Rides Shotgun . . . but now I’m not even sure that’s true. The story and the general vibe of this book is still percolating in my mind, especially the ending. Harper knows how to finish a novel on the right note.
To quote Elmore Leonard: ““F--king endings, man, they weren't as easy as they looked.”
Absolutely essential. I’ll be surprised if I read a better novel this year.
May 23, 2023
Being a fan of S.A. Cosby, this title popped up as a recommendation. When I picked it up at the library, I was pleased to see a flattering quote about the author from Cosby. Needless to say, I was eager to dig my heels in.
We meet Luke, an eighteen year old whose struggle with life in Colorado gets the best of him. About to be evicted and destitute, he packs his bags and boards a bus headed for the desert towns of SoCA in search of a new life. His father known as Big Bobby, has been in prison for years but has left behind a community known as the 'Columbine'. A stranger in a strange land, this is the only 'family' Luke will come to know.
An unsavory group of inked, racist drug addicts, killers and thieves, the Columbine is unlike any family Luke could fathom. He manages to become friends with one of the younger couples who 'fill him in' on how 'things work'. This is the world of meth labs, violence, turf wars and sociopaths, which when added to white nationalism is dark, ugly and fear driven. Turf wars with groups called Aryan Steel and others paint a picture of the environment Luke is immersed within. Over time he comes to realize the 'family' his father created is filled with hate, judgement and animal instincts and not what he'd signed up for.
The author manages to engage the reader in the beginning, but due to flat, predictable characters and plot I grew drowsy from repetition. And while I'm sure the violence that meth heads and dealers is typical, I found the cruelty and complete lack of humanity difficult to swallow.
In some ways this is a coming of age story, but not the type I prefer. Most seasoned mystery authors build momentum as the story nears the finish, but this plods along at the same pace throughout. As an appreciator of well crafted plots and characters, I can't recommend this at all.
We meet Luke, an eighteen year old whose struggle with life in Colorado gets the best of him. About to be evicted and destitute, he packs his bags and boards a bus headed for the desert towns of SoCA in search of a new life. His father known as Big Bobby, has been in prison for years but has left behind a community known as the 'Columbine'. A stranger in a strange land, this is the only 'family' Luke will come to know.
An unsavory group of inked, racist drug addicts, killers and thieves, the Columbine is unlike any family Luke could fathom. He manages to become friends with one of the younger couples who 'fill him in' on how 'things work'. This is the world of meth labs, violence, turf wars and sociopaths, which when added to white nationalism is dark, ugly and fear driven. Turf wars with groups called Aryan Steel and others paint a picture of the environment Luke is immersed within. Over time he comes to realize the 'family' his father created is filled with hate, judgement and animal instincts and not what he'd signed up for.
The author manages to engage the reader in the beginning, but due to flat, predictable characters and plot I grew drowsy from repetition. And while I'm sure the violence that meth heads and dealers is typical, I found the cruelty and complete lack of humanity difficult to swallow.
In some ways this is a coming of age story, but not the type I prefer. Most seasoned mystery authors build momentum as the story nears the finish, but this plods along at the same pace throughout. As an appreciator of well crafted plots and characters, I can't recommend this at all.
November 23, 2022
I’ve mentioned before how it is astounding that some American crime authors are struggling to get fair deals in their own country and says a lot for the emphasis placed on marketability in the publishing industry as these books do not fall comfortably into the thriller or mystery category that is used to encompass what is a more wide ranging genre. Jordan Harper is on the end of this with this title published in the UK, but not the US, but such is the way of the world that canny US readers can still get their hands on it.
Harper plunges us back into his fictional universe with members of the neo-Nazi gang, Aryan Steel and their blue thunder bolts, showing up throughout alongside Luke and Callie. The pair were play-cousins during childhood, but when Luke’s father horrifically kills a man outside a bowling alley, Luke is whisked away from the Devore Combine’s ranch and brought up by his mother’s family. Luke has never dealt with the trauma he suffers from the murder and eventually finds himself back at the ranch as a final refuge. As Luke decides if he wants to join the Combine, Callie and her boyfriend are looking for a way out as they search for life and meaning beyond the gang.
Harper’s conceit is simple enough as the two main characters move in opposite directions of the Combine, but his skill lies in understanding human behaviour and describing his characters’ decision making so well. His descriptions of how his characters feel in any given moment is exceptional and you can really slip into the characters’ skin as they deal with the travails of the plot. This is really a character based book with a hardcore criminal element. The violence is shocking and ugly and I was in awe of the use of spreading butter on toast to segue into the murder Luke’s father committed. It’s a moment that curdles the stomach even thinking about it now.
This is not a book filled with twists and turns, but a straight ahead crime story dealing simultaneously with the allure and downside of a criminal career. Harper remains one of the leading lights of American crime fiction, I just hope his home country can understand that before too long.
Harper plunges us back into his fictional universe with members of the neo-Nazi gang, Aryan Steel and their blue thunder bolts, showing up throughout alongside Luke and Callie. The pair were play-cousins during childhood, but when Luke’s father horrifically kills a man outside a bowling alley, Luke is whisked away from the Devore Combine’s ranch and brought up by his mother’s family. Luke has never dealt with the trauma he suffers from the murder and eventually finds himself back at the ranch as a final refuge. As Luke decides if he wants to join the Combine, Callie and her boyfriend are looking for a way out as they search for life and meaning beyond the gang.
Harper’s conceit is simple enough as the two main characters move in opposite directions of the Combine, but his skill lies in understanding human behaviour and describing his characters’ decision making so well. His descriptions of how his characters feel in any given moment is exceptional and you can really slip into the characters’ skin as they deal with the travails of the plot. This is really a character based book with a hardcore criminal element. The violence is shocking and ugly and I was in awe of the use of spreading butter on toast to segue into the murder Luke’s father committed. It’s a moment that curdles the stomach even thinking about it now.
This is not a book filled with twists and turns, but a straight ahead crime story dealing simultaneously with the allure and downside of a criminal career. Harper remains one of the leading lights of American crime fiction, I just hope his home country can understand that before too long.
February 10, 2023
YES! Jordan Harper has a new book! A book that might make you wonder….If you can’t trust your family, who can you trust?
Luke Crosswhite is a 19-year old, lost soul. After dropping out of school, Luke only has one place to go. Back to California and his family he hasn't seen in years. He hasn't been back since that long-ago night of violence that sent his father to prison. Big Bobby Crosswhite, may be in prison, but he’s still the king of a crew of criminals called the Combine. And he’s still Luke’s father. Can Luke finally make peace with the pain and trauma of that night? Maybe being home will help. The Combine deals with a little bit of everything from stolen parts to drugs, but at the same time remains small enough not to get in anyone’s way. That is until Beast Daniels comes a ‘knocking. Blood is love is the Combine family motto, but can the words stand true and tall when tested? Will the crew band together to fend off a Beast or will they crumble under the pressure? The best of families can crumble under pressure. Throw in a little lack of trust, paranoia, and greed…well you’ve got yourself a ticking time bomb.
Right off the bat, I have to admit that these characters didn’t dig in as deep as Harper’s previous work. That’s not to say Luke, Callie, Pretty Baby, Del, Sam, Curtis, and more aren’t compelling characters. They are! I just don’t think they’re going to stay with me. Not like Polly's voice.
For me, it’s a combined chemistry and tension that holds this story together. Every character or pair has a role that adds a distinctive energy to the narrative—like the couple in love, the twins, the true believer, the leader, and the possible future heir to the throne. There’s love and friction all around! Come see who survives this battle of blood and fire. You might be surprised who’s left standing at the end.
This compact, gritty, world vibrates with tension, pain, and rage. The life of a criminal has a different feel and swagger and Harper has one hell of a knack of capturing it all on the page. His coiled up tight, ready to strike lines push the action along and put you right there in the moment. In the crime. In the fight. In the pounding, drown-out-the-world music or speeding car swerving in and out of traffic. I could feel some of those scenes on my skin. And this might surprise you...but there is beauty in the words too. In lines like…
“Air is invisible so that sometimes you forget it’s more than just nothingness, until you step into a night so thick you could take your feet off the ground and swim through it.”
I love that line. Yup, Jordan fucking Harper is back! With not one, but 2 new books. And I can’t wait to read more of his words. I’m going to shut up now. Just read this book. It’s a dark, violent look at the day-to-day hustle of an outlaw life. Simply put…it’s a badass read with bite.
I'm off to hunt down Everybody Knows now.
August 3, 2023
Wow, best book I've read in 2023! Brutally poetic like She Rides Shotgun but different.
May 12, 2023
Luke returns to the gang his father runs from prison, but the members don’t exactly welcome him with open arms. Callie grew up with Luke, but she doesn’t dare share her plan to make a big score and bail with her boyfriend. She knows it’s only a matter of time before a rival gang comes to claim a slice of their action or burns the entire organization to the ground.
This beautifully written crime novel starts with a brutal scene that does a great job of showing the life or death stakes. While this novel is in the same world of SHE RIDES SHOTGUN, it’s not a traditional sequel that follows the same lead characters. THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA focuses on Luke and Callie, giving a handful of brief scenes in the perspectives of a few other characters as the story progresses.
Harper goes deep with the two protagonists, making it impossible to not care about their fates. The gang members are well established, so despite their number, it’s easy to differentiate them. Despite the closeness of the members, the power dynamics within the gang create palpable tension.
Jordan Harper is on my list of automatic buy authors. I savor his novels and short stories.
This beautifully written crime novel starts with a brutal scene that does a great job of showing the life or death stakes. While this novel is in the same world of SHE RIDES SHOTGUN, it’s not a traditional sequel that follows the same lead characters. THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA focuses on Luke and Callie, giving a handful of brief scenes in the perspectives of a few other characters as the story progresses.
Harper goes deep with the two protagonists, making it impossible to not care about their fates. The gang members are well established, so despite their number, it’s easy to differentiate them. Despite the closeness of the members, the power dynamics within the gang create palpable tension.
Jordan Harper is on my list of automatic buy authors. I savor his novels and short stories.
August 15, 2023
This was interesting. I am normally a big fanboy of everything Jordan Harper does, but this one kind of lost me halfway through and won me over again right at the very end. Maybe in the last 50 pages or so.
I understand what Harper was trying to do. He was going for an inversion of the American Outlaw mythos with a young adult protagonist seen through nostalgic glasses. It works well on that level. The gang he joins is a little more boilerplate. They're not nazis, they're not bikers either, they're all white, but not ethnically motivated. So, that makes our protagonist Luke an original and daring character that challenged the roman of the American Outlaw caught in a setting that is exactly the romance of the American Outlaw.
A stylist at heart, Harper overdoes it at times (why does everything smell greasy in this novel), but redeems himself with powerful storytelling that plays with the genre's clichés and strong, brutal images that imbue action scenes with real stakes and I'm a sucker for that.
The highs were higher than for She Rides Shotgun, but the lows were lower. Interesting novel to say the least.
I understand what Harper was trying to do. He was going for an inversion of the American Outlaw mythos with a young adult protagonist seen through nostalgic glasses. It works well on that level. The gang he joins is a little more boilerplate. They're not nazis, they're not bikers either, they're all white, but not ethnically motivated. So, that makes our protagonist Luke an original and daring character that challenged the roman of the American Outlaw caught in a setting that is exactly the romance of the American Outlaw.
A stylist at heart, Harper overdoes it at times (why does everything smell greasy in this novel), but redeems himself with powerful storytelling that plays with the genre's clichés and strong, brutal images that imbue action scenes with real stakes and I'm a sucker for that.
The highs were higher than for She Rides Shotgun, but the lows were lower. Interesting novel to say the least.
December 16, 2024
Extremely one-note and violent. No likable characters. It figures that S.A. Crosby and Don Winslow are referenced for comparison. I don’t like their books either. However, “She Rides Shotgun” was wonderful, so I haven’t given up on this author.
October 20, 2022
My likely pick for book of the year. Ferocious writing and storytelling. Not available in the US, but you can order it from the UK cheap!
July 9, 2022
In Jordan Harper’s The Last King of California, nineteen-year-old and somewhat milquetoast Luke Crosswhite finds himself directionless and decides to leave college from Colorado and return home to Devore, California. This is no easy task for Luke because he is the son of the infamous and imprisoned Big Bobby Crosswhite.
Big Bobby, in prison for murder, is the exact opposite of Luke and helms a group known as The Combine from prison. The Combine is a tight-knit group of criminals made up of people with their own rag-tag criminal skill sets and is held together by an extremely enforced level of group loyalty.
While Big Bobby has been in prison, The Combine has been led by Big Bobby’s brother, Del, with The Combine’s purpose to remain small enough to fly beneath the radar of other area criminal groups while still remaining profitable and prosperous.
Upon Luke’s arrival home, he finds his Uncle Del has taken in several other criminals, one of which lives within Luke’s old bedroom, forcing Luke to live in a dilapidated trailer behind his former home.
At first, Luke is seen as weak by the others and is then faced with either transforming his entire being into someone befitting acceptance into The Combine or remaining to be treated as an almost ostracized outsider.
Because of his own insecurities, even Luke does not realize how intelligent he is until after a violent epiphany of his own. It is then that he starts to change, soon realizing he may even be turning into a man more like his father every day than the timid teen that first returned home.
Unfortunately for The Combine, another criminal group known as the Aryan Steel decides to expand its grasp within the region with plans to force other groups to pay them a tithing. The Aryan Steel is led by a man named Beast Daniels. Daniels is a sociopathic and sadistically violent leader and is introduced to readers with the portrayal of the killing of a man in a horrific manner to solely send a message to any others with thoughts of going against or ignoring the expansion of his group.
At the same time with the possibility of being swallowed up by the demands of Beast Daniels, The Combine and other area residents are also faced with the encroachment of massive, once-in-a-lifetime California wildfires.
The novel then continues to focus on the further evolving Luke, The Combine’s likely eradication by a larger crime group, and its own troublesome internal problems.
When it comes to a reader deciding whether or not to read Jordan Harper’s The Last King of California potential readers should be aware that this is not a novel focusing on White supremacy or racist groups. It is simply a very well-written crime novel where in the plot, the villains exist in such a group and are more like tertiary characters used to most effectively drive the main plot.
Jordan Harper also has a wonderfully expressive way of describing people, places, and actions that allows the reader to easily mentally imagine strong visuals.
The Last King of California is highly recommended to fans not only of crime fiction but all fiction as well.
Readers are also encouraged to seek out his 2017 crime novel She Rides Shotgun (AKA A Lesson in Violence).
The Last King of California was provided by Netgalley on the promise of a fair review.
Big Bobby, in prison for murder, is the exact opposite of Luke and helms a group known as The Combine from prison. The Combine is a tight-knit group of criminals made up of people with their own rag-tag criminal skill sets and is held together by an extremely enforced level of group loyalty.
While Big Bobby has been in prison, The Combine has been led by Big Bobby’s brother, Del, with The Combine’s purpose to remain small enough to fly beneath the radar of other area criminal groups while still remaining profitable and prosperous.
Upon Luke’s arrival home, he finds his Uncle Del has taken in several other criminals, one of which lives within Luke’s old bedroom, forcing Luke to live in a dilapidated trailer behind his former home.
At first, Luke is seen as weak by the others and is then faced with either transforming his entire being into someone befitting acceptance into The Combine or remaining to be treated as an almost ostracized outsider.
Because of his own insecurities, even Luke does not realize how intelligent he is until after a violent epiphany of his own. It is then that he starts to change, soon realizing he may even be turning into a man more like his father every day than the timid teen that first returned home.
Unfortunately for The Combine, another criminal group known as the Aryan Steel decides to expand its grasp within the region with plans to force other groups to pay them a tithing. The Aryan Steel is led by a man named Beast Daniels. Daniels is a sociopathic and sadistically violent leader and is introduced to readers with the portrayal of the killing of a man in a horrific manner to solely send a message to any others with thoughts of going against or ignoring the expansion of his group.
At the same time with the possibility of being swallowed up by the demands of Beast Daniels, The Combine and other area residents are also faced with the encroachment of massive, once-in-a-lifetime California wildfires.
The novel then continues to focus on the further evolving Luke, The Combine’s likely eradication by a larger crime group, and its own troublesome internal problems.
When it comes to a reader deciding whether or not to read Jordan Harper’s The Last King of California potential readers should be aware that this is not a novel focusing on White supremacy or racist groups. It is simply a very well-written crime novel where in the plot, the villains exist in such a group and are more like tertiary characters used to most effectively drive the main plot.
Jordan Harper also has a wonderfully expressive way of describing people, places, and actions that allows the reader to easily mentally imagine strong visuals.
The Last King of California is highly recommended to fans not only of crime fiction but all fiction as well.
Readers are also encouraged to seek out his 2017 crime novel She Rides Shotgun (AKA A Lesson in Violence).
The Last King of California was provided by Netgalley on the promise of a fair review.
January 27, 2025
Fully committed, relentlessly hardcore, with an ending that singes your soul. Brilliant work that cements Harper as one of my favorite working writers.
January 6, 2025
⭐️⭐️Review⭐️⭐️
📖: The Last King of California
🧍♂️Author: Jordan Harper
About? Luke is a sensitive boy turned hard man who grew up with a Father who led a violent gang. His Father committed an act of violence so terrible he is in prison throughout the story. Luke tries to go out into the world and live an honest life but the his home, the people he grew up with and gang he was raised in quietly calls his name.
Makes you feel? Jordan Harper is truly a magnificent writer. He is able to write a scene that makes you feel nostalgic and like it’s brand new all at once. This book is a crime thriller that is so character-driven I couldn’t help but root for and empathize with people in the gang - all while they were acting in cruel and unusual ways. Hard to explain but jump in and you’ll get it. Highly highly highly recommend not only this book - (being published TOMORROW!!! ), but any of Jordan Harper’s books. He can write about an ugly subject in a such beautiful way.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you so much to Netgalley and Hackett Audio for providing me with an advanced audible copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
📖: The Last King of California
🧍♂️Author: Jordan Harper
About? Luke is a sensitive boy turned hard man who grew up with a Father who led a violent gang. His Father committed an act of violence so terrible he is in prison throughout the story. Luke tries to go out into the world and live an honest life but the his home, the people he grew up with and gang he was raised in quietly calls his name.
Makes you feel? Jordan Harper is truly a magnificent writer. He is able to write a scene that makes you feel nostalgic and like it’s brand new all at once. This book is a crime thriller that is so character-driven I couldn’t help but root for and empathize with people in the gang - all while they were acting in cruel and unusual ways. Hard to explain but jump in and you’ll get it. Highly highly highly recommend not only this book - (being published TOMORROW!!! ), but any of Jordan Harper’s books. He can write about an ugly subject in a such beautiful way.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thank you so much to Netgalley and Hackett Audio for providing me with an advanced audible copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
July 9, 2022
The Last King of California – Jordan Harper
“Blood is love”
The Last King of California follows Luke, once ripped away from his Father’s family after a violent incident, as he is forced to reluctantly return to the family and gang he doesn’t know anymore.
Now seen as an outsider, something inside is pulling him towards his family and to a life of crime.
At the same time a threat to the gang is coming, leading Luke to a decision on his future and a return to the life he didn’t know he craved.
‘Sometimes to find yourself, you have to go back to where you came from.’
The Last King of California is my first ARC via NetGalley and was such a good first one to read. Once I started I didn’t want to stop, I was fully pulled into the story and partly I think this is due to it having some serious Sons of Anarchy vibes, the story feels like it belongs in the same universe.
This is the first of author Jordan Harper’s books I have read and it won’t be the last!
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for sending me this excellent story!
The Last King of California is due to be published on the 29th September.
“Blood is love”
The Last King of California follows Luke, once ripped away from his Father’s family after a violent incident, as he is forced to reluctantly return to the family and gang he doesn’t know anymore.
Now seen as an outsider, something inside is pulling him towards his family and to a life of crime.
At the same time a threat to the gang is coming, leading Luke to a decision on his future and a return to the life he didn’t know he craved.
‘Sometimes to find yourself, you have to go back to where you came from.’
The Last King of California is my first ARC via NetGalley and was such a good first one to read. Once I started I didn’t want to stop, I was fully pulled into the story and partly I think this is due to it having some serious Sons of Anarchy vibes, the story feels like it belongs in the same universe.
This is the first of author Jordan Harper’s books I have read and it won’t be the last!
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK for sending me this excellent story!
The Last King of California is due to be published on the 29th September.
December 14, 2022
All hail the king!
February 7, 2025
I had zero connection with any of the characters in this story for me to care about what was happening. Did not care for the particular writing style. It was rather graphic at times which was not the part that bothered me. Just was written in such a detached way. The story was in need of something for me to hold onto.
June 30, 2025
Gritty face paced thriller about family. Luke comes back to the combine after being gone for a number of years and tries to find his place, Callie has been in the family and longs to leave. Gangs/power/family drama.
August 31, 2022
‘She Rides Shotgun’ by Jordan Harper was one of my favourite books of 2017 and it seems to have taken an age for him to follow it up but it seems that we are getting two publications released in very short order and the first of these is The Last King of California. Luke Crosswhite returns to the family home after failing to carve out a life of his own but that family is a criminal gang, known as the Combine, which is headed up by Luke’s uncle Del and ran from prison by Luke’s father. Although Luke is welcomed back home he must decide if he wants to step up and join and become his father’s natural successor or whether to strike out again on his own. The Combine are also under threat from Beast Daniels, leader of the Aryan Steel, who is pressuring them to kickback some of their profits or risk an all out war.
It’s difficult to review this novel without giving too much of the story away but I’ll try as best I can. The main theme of the story is the internal battle that Luke has with himself as to whether to fully embrace the criminal gang culture or whether to leave that all behind and to live a straight life, a path which he has already trod and failed at. To decide, Luke must first find himself and prove to himself and others of what he is capable. In a sense this is a sort of coming of age novel although it arrives at a later stage in Luke’s life. Luke is initially perceived as weak by the family/gang members and he is tolerated but not truly accepted by them. He is also perceived as a threat by his Uncle Del, who knows that Luke is the true successor to the throne, if he does decide to join the Combine. Luke eventually decides the path he must take and the novel climaxes against raging forest fires which sweeps across the state threatening the Combines home and also their very existence.
This is another cracking novel from Jordan Harper and hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get my hands on a copy of ‘Everybody Knows’ which is also due for release soon.
It’s difficult to review this novel without giving too much of the story away but I’ll try as best I can. The main theme of the story is the internal battle that Luke has with himself as to whether to fully embrace the criminal gang culture or whether to leave that all behind and to live a straight life, a path which he has already trod and failed at. To decide, Luke must first find himself and prove to himself and others of what he is capable. In a sense this is a sort of coming of age novel although it arrives at a later stage in Luke’s life. Luke is initially perceived as weak by the family/gang members and he is tolerated but not truly accepted by them. He is also perceived as a threat by his Uncle Del, who knows that Luke is the true successor to the throne, if he does decide to join the Combine. Luke eventually decides the path he must take and the novel climaxes against raging forest fires which sweeps across the state threatening the Combines home and also their very existence.
This is another cracking novel from Jordan Harper and hopefully it won’t be too long before I can get my hands on a copy of ‘Everybody Knows’ which is also due for release soon.
May 22, 2025
3.5
A nice quick read, great for the beach. I got drawn in by the S.A. Cosby foreword, but this book is nowhere near as intricate and well-done as Cosby's. I felt like there was a pacing issue, and I wish Luke was more developed as a character than he was. It felt as though Callie was so rounded as a character, but Luke was kinda just... eh. However, I did enjoy it and liked it enough.
A nice quick read, great for the beach. I got drawn in by the S.A. Cosby foreword, but this book is nowhere near as intricate and well-done as Cosby's. I felt like there was a pacing issue, and I wish Luke was more developed as a character than he was. It felt as though Callie was so rounded as a character, but Luke was kinda just... eh. However, I did enjoy it and liked it enough.
March 27, 2025
4.5 stars for excellent characters and the unique writing style. The juxtaposition of Luke and Callie’s characters is written so well. The setting plays a pivotal role in the story- reading that back sounds really robotic but I have no other way to put it without a spoiler tag!
Tempted to give the book 5 stars; however, I do believe that some chapters could have been longer to let some scenes be fully fleshed out.
Tempted to give the book 5 stars; however, I do believe that some chapters could have been longer to let some scenes be fully fleshed out.
June 4, 2025
Late to the party, but made up for it by churning through Jordan Harper’s The Last King of California in two sittings. Harper once again displays mastery of setting and characterization in this story of rival gangs, while also touching on homecomings, hope, loss, PTSD, and more.
The easy comparison is Sons of Anarchy (with dashes of The Godfather and The Sopranos), but there’s a depth to the story that is unlike any of those. You get to *know* these characters; you can see and *feel* their environments. Just top-notch storytelling.
The easy comparison is Sons of Anarchy (with dashes of The Godfather and The Sopranos), but there’s a depth to the story that is unlike any of those. You get to *know* these characters; you can see and *feel* their environments. Just top-notch storytelling.
March 24, 2025
Book content warnings: substance abuse, violence.
This is not a book I think I would usually go for, but I ended up enjoying it. It was picked for one of my book clubs. The writing style was very straightforward and easy to follow, and I enjoyed that there was always something happening in the book; it was hard to put down. I also liked how we were following Luke as the main character, but we also got a lot of Callie’s POV. They had opposite motivations so it was interesting as the reader to see the two different sides throughout the whole story.
This is not a book I think I would usually go for, but I ended up enjoying it. It was picked for one of my book clubs. The writing style was very straightforward and easy to follow, and I enjoyed that there was always something happening in the book; it was hard to put down. I also liked how we were following Luke as the main character, but we also got a lot of Callie’s POV. They had opposite motivations so it was interesting as the reader to see the two different sides throughout the whole story.
June 6, 2025
If you’ve read Jordan Harper’s other novels, you’ll know exactly what to expect here. If this is your first time, you’ll be just as impressed as I always am by the way that Harper’s writing can be filled with sorrow and melancholy, while equally feel rugged, tough, and determined. He’s one of the most well-balanced writers in the dark crime genre, and this book once again demonstrates his talents.
While the book explores similar themes to some of Harper’s other works and may not feel as fresh as his other novels, it remains an outstanding addition to his growing and already impressive bibliography.
There’s this thing inside him, this part of the base of his brain, and it screams and it tears at him. He wants to talk to it, to reason with it, but how can he reason with this part of him that was shaped before language and will never learn how to speak in words?In this novel, a young man named Luke, who’s recently failed at a college life, returns home to California’s Inland Empire and to The Combine, the criminal organization he grew up in. Just in time, he finds himself entangled in a brewing turf war between The Combine and the Aryan Brotherhood.
Murder is a type of magic. It has powers so a single person killed with intention can haunt the world more than a million lives ended by car crashes or cancer. Beast Daniels knows this. It’s why he and his men “Christed” Troy to that trailer floor and left him there to burn alive. So his ghost will infest the minds of every plugged-in Peckerwood from here to Bakersfield.Harper’s writing is masterful in capturing Luke’s malaise and regret throughout the book. What makes it truly captivating is witnessing Luke’s realization that no matter his actions, he can’t escape the destiny and legacy that’s been patiently waiting for him on the criminal path.
While the book explores similar themes to some of Harper’s other works and may not feel as fresh as his other novels, it remains an outstanding addition to his growing and already impressive bibliography.
He knows now that what he fears is not the world, not his family, but only and ever himself. That there is something struggling inside him, tearing him apart. But maybe it is struggling to be born. Maybe he should help it come out into the world.
January 9, 2023
Jordan Harper is so damn good. I think I liked this almost as much as She Rides Shotgun—they work well as a pair. As far as I can tell this book has only been released in the UK but, if you are a fan, it’s worth trying to score a copy.
September 20, 2022
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance copy, this was the best book I read this year.
I'm a huge Jordan Harper fan and, in addition to delving into his fictional universe, I learn a lot from his newsletter. When I read She Rides Shotgun, I laughed, I was afraid, I was angry, I cried and I was amazed.
With The Last King of California it was no different.
Harper presents us with a brutal coming of age story, which may even resemble Sons of Anarchy or Animal Kingdom in a way, but takes a very different path. With unique characters, sometimes brutal and sometimes sublime descriptions, The Last King of California is a story about war, family, loyalty and the things we do to survive. I loved revisiting old characters and the way the events of past stories also have a weight on the new characters. Gradually, Harper is building his universe brilliantly.
The book ends in the right way, at the right time. As I read, I felt like a man riding a tiger, but also, I was the tiger too.
I'm a huge Jordan Harper fan and, in addition to delving into his fictional universe, I learn a lot from his newsletter. When I read She Rides Shotgun, I laughed, I was afraid, I was angry, I cried and I was amazed.
With The Last King of California it was no different.
Harper presents us with a brutal coming of age story, which may even resemble Sons of Anarchy or Animal Kingdom in a way, but takes a very different path. With unique characters, sometimes brutal and sometimes sublime descriptions, The Last King of California is a story about war, family, loyalty and the things we do to survive. I loved revisiting old characters and the way the events of past stories also have a weight on the new characters. Gradually, Harper is building his universe brilliantly.
The book ends in the right way, at the right time. As I read, I felt like a man riding a tiger, but also, I was the tiger too.
March 10, 2024
"Pain's a part of our natural condition. You get where you want no pain, it's the end of everything."
I have read everything I could reasonably get my hands on written by Jordan Harper, few writers these days can do hardboiled crime, noir fiction whatever title you want to give it, better than he does. This story has a bit of "Breaking Bad" and "Sons of Anarchy" flavor and a rough cast of characters, some of which (Luke, Callie and Pretty Baby), you can't help feeling sorry for at times. There are characters that are mentioned in the book (Nate and Polly) that we met in Harper's "She Rides Shotgun", but this is a stand alone story. This book is for those of us who love dark, gritty, no holds barred crime stories and all that entails.
I have read everything I could reasonably get my hands on written by Jordan Harper, few writers these days can do hardboiled crime, noir fiction whatever title you want to give it, better than he does. This story has a bit of "Breaking Bad" and "Sons of Anarchy" flavor and a rough cast of characters, some of which (Luke, Callie and Pretty Baby), you can't help feeling sorry for at times. There are characters that are mentioned in the book (Nate and Polly) that we met in Harper's "She Rides Shotgun", but this is a stand alone story. This book is for those of us who love dark, gritty, no holds barred crime stories and all that entails.
October 14, 2023
Written with a sprinkling of compassion, just the right amount of zeal, and a ton of attitude, Jordan Harper's 'The Last King of California' is a masterclass in descriptive prose, and a much stronger entry than his previous, loosely related effort ('A Lesson in Violence'). Painting a desolate, bleak picture of California's dusty and parched Inland Empire, Harpers characters - crankheads, misfits and ragtag outlaws alike - fit the setting perfectly. His sassy one liners, witty dialogue and evocative characterisations of scorching SoCal kept me wanting more. Intensely readable.
July 27, 2022
It took 5 years to get another Jordan Harper novel, and this one was worth the wait. A deep reflection about how who we are and who we want to be don't always align.
THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA is a profoundly atmospheric novel where every paragraph brings the reader to reflect on what was, what is, and what can be. It's a novel that reads at lightning speed, but requires frequent pauses to truly absorb everything Harper lays out on the page.
This one is a noir tour-de-force.
THE LAST KING OF CALIFORNIA is a profoundly atmospheric novel where every paragraph brings the reader to reflect on what was, what is, and what can be. It's a novel that reads at lightning speed, but requires frequent pauses to truly absorb everything Harper lays out on the page.
This one is a noir tour-de-force.
November 30, 2025
I really liked Jordan Harper's Everybody Knows with its razor-sharp dissection of Los Angeles celebrity culture craziness, and I quickly grabbed this one, his previous novel. Here he takes on a different kind of California crazy-- not the big-money, high-power games of the urban elites but the dog-eat-dog world of the white-trash criminal gangs that keep the hard-scrabble towns of the Inland Empire supplied with drugs. It is a harrowing ride.
Luke Crosswhite is the son of a top gang leader doing time in Folsom for a brutal murder. Farmed out at age ten or so to relatives in Colorado when his father went away, Luke has been raised more or less straight, though he hasn't made a particular success of his life. Now nineteen and out of options after dropping out of junior college, Luke comes back to California, determined to reconnect with his family.
And what a family it is. His uncle Del runs the Combine, a relatively small-time outfit that deals meth and dabbles in car theft and other crimes. The foot soldiers and hangers-on at the gang's desert compound are all ex-cons, crazies and delinquents of one sort or another; the womenfolk are tough as nails, even Luke's childhood play-cousin Callie, who is starting to have doubts about the family lifestyle. Del is nominally the boss but everyone knows it's really Luke's dad up in Folsom who calls the shots. Luke is no tough guy, and with traumatic memories knocking him off the rails in moments of stress, he realizes that family or not, he doesn't really belong here.
But he hangs on, starting to find his feet, and when an even tougher rival gang encroaches on the territory, demanding tribute, Luke finds the wherewithal to commit to the family enterprise.
It will test him and change him, and not for the better. Moral corruption is the theme here, and Harper looks it right in the eye: there is no romanticization of the criminal lifestyle. These are bad people, even if some of them have a certain rough charisma, and the choices that Luke and Callie make take them to bad places.
It's a terrific crime novel, brutal and vivid, and a compelling morality tale that never lectures or postures. Not for the faint of heart, but a great read.
Luke Crosswhite is the son of a top gang leader doing time in Folsom for a brutal murder. Farmed out at age ten or so to relatives in Colorado when his father went away, Luke has been raised more or less straight, though he hasn't made a particular success of his life. Now nineteen and out of options after dropping out of junior college, Luke comes back to California, determined to reconnect with his family.
And what a family it is. His uncle Del runs the Combine, a relatively small-time outfit that deals meth and dabbles in car theft and other crimes. The foot soldiers and hangers-on at the gang's desert compound are all ex-cons, crazies and delinquents of one sort or another; the womenfolk are tough as nails, even Luke's childhood play-cousin Callie, who is starting to have doubts about the family lifestyle. Del is nominally the boss but everyone knows it's really Luke's dad up in Folsom who calls the shots. Luke is no tough guy, and with traumatic memories knocking him off the rails in moments of stress, he realizes that family or not, he doesn't really belong here.
But he hangs on, starting to find his feet, and when an even tougher rival gang encroaches on the territory, demanding tribute, Luke finds the wherewithal to commit to the family enterprise.
It will test him and change him, and not for the better. Moral corruption is the theme here, and Harper looks it right in the eye: there is no romanticization of the criminal lifestyle. These are bad people, even if some of them have a certain rough charisma, and the choices that Luke and Callie make take them to bad places.
It's a terrific crime novel, brutal and vivid, and a compelling morality tale that never lectures or postures. Not for the faint of heart, but a great read.
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