The Golden Gate Book Review

The Golden Gate

by Amy Chua

Publisher: Minotaur Books an imprint of St. Martin’s Press
Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Historical Fiction / Mystery
Read This If You Love: Historical Fiction / History

“Nothing added up. I had a dead presidential candidate in the Claremont stripped half-naked with flowers sticking out of his mouth.”

The Golden Gate weaves a mystery around the history of Berkeley and San Fransisco in the 1930s and 1940s. When a dead presidential candidate shows up in the storied Claremont hotel, Detective Al Sullivan is on the case. While investigating the homicide, Sullivan gets pulled into the peculiar Bainbridge family and their complicated past. Who committed the murder, why, and how reads like a classic gum-shoe detective tale. However, The Golden Gate is packed full of historical details along the way. 

While I enjoyed the core mystery, I prefer my historical fiction novels to better integrate the facts into the story versus having long passages of history that feels more like a lecture. (For example, the way The Rose Code incorporates the history of Bletchley and various real people and events that were there was woven intricately into the detail of the overall story.) It is abundantly clear that Chua really knows her history and did so much research work. So I absolutely give her props for that and that it covers the often overlooked history of how the US treated residents of Japanese heritage during the war. However, this just wasn’t the book for me. There are readers from book clubs I’ve been in who would love the detail and this book. If you are a die-hard historical fiction fan, check it out. 

“Hope is the thing with feathers—that perches in the soul—and sings the tune without the words.”