Reno the Crook

He survived the loss of his mother in childbirth.
His grieving father became a man of God.
>At 14, Lane Belding needed to get in trouble ... almost any kind would do. It was the Eisenhower Fifties, and the meanest bully at school was coming after him. Lane knew exactly why-Lane looked just like the bright, popular, A-student minister's son he was. But if he got in a little trouble, it would prove to the bully he was "okay." So he turned to "Reno," his secret, rebellious inner self. Reno knew all about trouble. And the plan worked! But unfortunately, getting in trouble necessarily involved Lane's disciplinarian father. And as the respected minister of Palo Alto's elite Episcopal church, Lane's widower father had no sense of humor. None.

Coming of age in the so-called "conformist" Fifties, Lane and his friends were finding it just as difficult to grow up as in any other teen generation. And for high-spirited Lane to capitulate to the Draconian restrictions of his strict Canadian father ... well, he refused. He was hungry to experiment with "wrong" things-smoking cigarettes, finding out about girls, drinking beer, sneaking out at night. His friends' parents took such things in stride. But when Lane got a short haircut his father hated, he was grounded not for a few days but two long months-until it grew out! His father was the church's "spiritual leader," but to Lane, a defenseless and furious captive of the household, his father was hateful. Conceding to his Victorian standards was to surrender Lane's own life spirit!

In his misery, Lane Belding finds an unlikely ally. His father's young curate at church, seeing into Lane's pain, becomes a sympathetic confidante ... and just in time! Lane and his friends are entering a period when teen experimentation leads to serious consequences. Teen pregnancy, destructive drinking, vandalism, encounters with the police ... all enter their young lives, threatening the direst consequences. The consequences are so profound, in fact, that at their peak, they expose Lane's father and his own desperately twisted ethics.
In his father's house are many mansions ... some
ambitious young Lane Belding dared not enter ...
>In deceptively serene 1950s Palo Alto, decades
before Silicon had a "valley," finding his way was
a solitary safari across threatening lands ...
through violent, soul-defining choices ... casting
>But Lane Belding would find a way. Life, in all
its conflicts, false starts and misguided truths, was
worth the battle. He would find his way -- or go
out with one very loud bang!