Customer Reviews

Lords, Part 1

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Even though Joey is a fictional person this will still help my husband out so that his voice will be heard. My husband is Robert G Mistriel and the picture he could paint if someone would interview him would send chills down your spin. The way he and other boys were beaten and the fact that he knew that the Lords took a young boy from the house and until this day Robert believes they killed the young boy. I spend weekends and nights talkig to him and hearing his story and I have truly grown to love him with all my heart. He did not murder Ed Buck but he did have to pay for openning his mouth.

David Flores Mistriel

Living in Bakersfield I was in high school when real story happened. But didn't really follow it much. I knew some of the "Lords" in real life after I came out in the early 80's.

When the story of "The Lords" hit the Bakersfield paper in 2003, my mom told me about the articles and I read them online. I was freaked out to say the least.

Good thing flashy cars and money were never something to turn my head as a young man. I might have ended up like "Joey".

I was so impressed upon reading "Lords". It paints a honest picture of the Bakersfield I live in, but also couches a superb story in that town in the ways that make it more than a book about Bakersfield. In fact, this is not a Bakersfield book at all--it's a dark, frightening, and fully intriguing human story, and one that should be read by many. Highly recommended.

In lords: Part One by N.L. Belardes the inner city corruption of Bakersfield California is personified by one man, Simon Sundale owner of the towns most read newspaper. Through it Sundale manipulates public opinion the way a potter shapes his works of art, while leading a decadent life of perverted homosexuality and homicide. Belardes weaves his tale of corrupt homosexual power and of its symbiotic secret affair with street-smart young male transvestites who are desperate for cash and all the pleasures it will buy, around several symbolic elements.

While Bakersfield with its inner city down town ghost like qualities, including Chinese tunnels running beneath it, stands at the center of the story, Hollywood--in terms of the lords interdependence with young, pretty boys to satisfy their perversions--is Bakersfield's back yard..

It's from there we follow Joey Minstrel, a young pretty faced boy, in the car of a lord bringing him to Bakersfield, much like a pet dog for Sundale to groom and "play" with like his personal toy.

The story climaxes with the murder of a dubious character by Sundale. A crime that, true to the timbre of the towns justice system--in which the police work hand in hand with Sundale--proves unsolvable. And while Joey Minstrel was part of a counter-plot to extort Sundale and could have been implicated in the murder, the powers that ruled Bakersfield surrounded him with an impenetrable defense and he does only six months in a juvenile home.

Upon his release, he doesn't know where he is headed. At this point among the entire cast of this noir narrative, only Joey Minstrel stands a chance of being morally redeemed. There is a moment of reflection in which he realizes he might be a free agent, but that freedom to choose depends on the presence of Karvac, an older boy who'd been his mentor back in Hollywood. In the absence of Karvac, he entertains a few adolescent pipe dreams of what might lie "out there" for him. In the meantime, however, he will cling to the only tangible dream at hand, to be needed and used in the most depraved way. After all, he was now a lord.

Belardes's prose is always detailed and to the point. One feels the journalist that he is in his writing. His feel for the inner city decay abandoned by the suburban tax base is like an index finger pressing hard on its main nerve. Moreover, from the predatory degenerates at the top to the scheming blackmailers at the bottom, his pen fleshes them out and makes them all believable. One is only left to wonder in lords: Part Two what Joey Minstrels future will bring; will he eventually be redeemed or inherit Simon Sundale's evil predatory throne?

An amazing jurney into the dark underbelly of a small town. The Lords part 1 is the suff that nightmares are made of! The type of book you won't want to put down!

Lords: Part One is the kind of book that once you pick it up, you can't put down. The writing style creates vivid imagery and draws you into a world that is strange and at the same time familiar. Those familiar with the history and people of Bakersfield, California are sure to have their perceptions altered and begin to question the assumptions that they have lived with their whole lives. Others will find themselves wondering what secrets may lurk in the shadows, hearts, and minds of the people in their own hometown. All too quickly the book comes to a close, leaving the story unfinished with questions filling the mind of the reader. We are told to never judge a book by its cover. Lords: Part One reminds the reader that this applies to people and places as well.

If you've been in Bakersfield long enough, you will have heard the rumors of dark alliances that reach all the way to the highest levels, of ritual and shame and corruption that go so far beyond the realm of bribes and kickbacks you don't want to believe they could be true.

Lords, Part I is a fast-moving tale of vice and weirdness that does, or perhaps does not reflect the reality, or the unreality, of Bakersfield's secrets. Whatever the truth might be, the authentic feel of this story will grab you and hold onto you until the end. Or is it the end?

Is it possible to enjoy a story like this? You bet. N.L. Belardes reveals insight and considerable intellect, and perhaps just a touch of dark humor. He knows his craft well, and his writing is a pleasure to read, no matter how weird the subject.

I look forward to reading his next book.

if you haven't read it already, you need to! buy it, borrow it, steal it... who cares?! this is a must read. it's so hard to believe that it is fiction. sex, drugs, scandal, the law... what more can you ask for? conspiracies all over! it's a movie.. ready to be made! pick it up!

Lords: Part One paints a dark complex tale of Bakersfield, California artfully woven and full of vivid imagery, metaphors and images of alienation, lost innocence, corrupt power, fear, hidden secrets, the influence of the media on the subconscious mind and lurking evil forces of the spirit world, in nature, in people and in places as well. Lords: Part One will make you question what's really going on around you. Once you start reading it... you can't put it down. I can't wait for Lords: Part Two!

Lords: part one is violent, make no mistake about that, but it is one of the most original books I have read in a while. I was glued to it from cover to cover. The story involves a ring of corruption and prostitution in the local government and media of Bakersfield. It also dives into the haunted history of Bakersfield, which adds a colorful element to the overall story. I cannot wait till Lords; part two comes out.