Locations, locations, locations
One of the things I’d like to do with this site is answer questions my readers have about “Rincon Point.” A question that comes up a lot is, “Are all the locations used in the novel real?” The short answer is that “Rincon Point” uses a mix of real and imagined places.
My readers in Ventura County often comment that one of the things they like about the novel is the realistic portrayal of the area. And depicting the area realistically was one of my goals in writing it, so that’s definitely nice to hear. I tend to appreciate that kind of local flavor in other novels. I’ve never been to Boston, but Robert B. Parker makes me feel like I’m there when I read one of his Spenser novels. I live near Los Angeles, and it’s impressive how Michael Connelly gets that place right.
I wanted to get the important things right about Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties in “Rincon Point,” but I also wanted some artistic license. Hence the mix of actual and made-up places. The streets are all real, and all connect in the way described on the page. The Kmart really was on Victoria in Ventura back in 1991 (a Wal-Mart is there now). The Shakey’s Pizza Parlor, the laundromat, the tire shop on Thompson, the EP Foster Library, all real locations for the time.
But the Beam Reach bar and the Docksider Motel at the Ventura Marina are made-up. While there are plenty of real bars I could have used in the novel, I wanted to do more with that place than just add some background. In many ways, that bar becomes the hub of the story. It will be featured in future stories in the Terry Cahill series.
The tiny white storefront was the entrance to 851 Front St. in Ventura, CA. That’s the real location of the fictional dojo in the Terry Cahill series. In the last few years this strip was torn down and redeveloped into mixed-use urban residential.
The dojo on 851 Front Street was a real building that looked as described in the book, however I don’t know that it ever served as an actual dojo. Probably not. There probably wasn’t an Italian deli next door, either. Delissi’s Deli was a real place, but it was in Thousand Oaks in the ‘70s and ‘80s, not in Ventura. I don’t know about back in 1991, but until recently there really was a surf shop next to the dojo location. That row of buildings has now been knocked down, and new, modern-looking apartments line that part of Front Street. You can see how it once looked on Google Maps, though.
In Carpinteria, the convenience store on 501 Linden really exists. Shockley’s Tavern was a product of my own imagination, as I didn’t want to connect an actual business with some of the bad stuff that goes down there. The depiction of Santa Barbara is geographically accurate, but Zadini’s is also an imagined location, loosely based on a real restaurant very near where I placed Zadini’s in the novel.
The stone structure on Rincon Point Beach really does exist, although the surf gang that claimed it as their own does not, and never has to the best of my knowledge.
So there you have it. The world of “Rincon Point” is closely based on what you’ll find should you ever visit these places. But it’s not an exact copy