I began to read this book 2 days ago and could not put it down. It is the story of the birth of a city, Los Angeles, which coincides with the settling of the area by two prominent families, the Deanes and the Van Vliets. Through marriage, these two families merge and produce adventurous men who gamble everything on risky business ventures and beautiful women. The Van Vliets take center stage, and the story follows the lives of two brothers, Bud and V3 (short for Vincente.) The older brother Bud is a confident, take-charge sort who intimidates his more introverted younger brother, V3. The younger man always feels that he is in his brother's shadow and so he constantly strives to match Bud in business and in love. This inevitably pits the two brothers against one another, and their sibling rivalry results in rash actions which have consequences on each succeeding generation of the family. The background setting of early Los Angeles is the perfect one for this epic novel, and the well-developed plot and characters make this 25-year-old book one which deserves to be rediscovered by today's readers.