RATING: SUPERB
SPOILERS!!!
I found the ending quite satisfactory. The clue that leads Judy to the commune is the album that Star recorded in the sixties. Her real name, Stella Higgins, is in the files of the FBI because when they raided the camp of the vigilantes, a couple of agents had a snoop around the commune, but Priest made them believe that these were just cottages used as temporary accommodation for the vineyard workers. Priest told them that the lease was for Stella Higgings.
So now Judy has the place where Priest hides, but her boss tells her to wait until the morning to raid the place. So when they get there, it is too late. Star is there, miserable, but he has no idea where Priest or Melanie are. When Judy and Michael take Dusty to his parents’ house, Melanie calls, and from her words and the tracing of the call they discover that she is in San Francisco. Judy thinks that Melanie could stop the earthquake if she knew Dusty was in danger, so she makes Michael and Dusty appear on the news as if the boy were in San Francisco, but he is soon flown to his grandparents again. Melanie sees the news and calls Michael immediately, but Priest discovers her before she can tell her location.
Priest ends up killing Melanie, and as he starts the vibrator, the radars find the location, and Judy and Michael go there. Judy and Priest end up in a face-to-face confrontation, and they both fire. Judy is injured, and she thinks she has killed Priest, and then she goes to see if Michael is okay. Later the agents tell her that Priest is nowhere to be found. In any case, the earthquake has been stopped.
The epilogue tells us about what happens to the characters after this. Star is given ten years in prison, and she is unhappy at first, but then a wardress falls in love with her and makes her stay nicer. Flower is taken in by a foster family, a Presbiterian pastor and his wife, but then she finds her grandmother, Priest’s mother, who has a sex shop, and she escapes the Presbiterian pastor and goes to live with her. Judy moves with Michael and Dusty, and when she becomes pregnant, they get married. As for Priest, he asks for help from Paul, his agent which sold the wine, and takes him to an illegal doctor to patch him up. After that, he just wonders from place to place, and he eventually gets back to the place where the commune is and where works for the construction of the dam are taking place. He is drunk and high, and in the last pages it is understood that he goes into the water and drowns.
I found the reading of the book fascinating and absorbing. Great plot and characters!!!
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