Pale Truth

California joined the Union in 1850; just in time for the state's sesquicentennial comes this big, ambitious and well-researched debut, the first in a planned historical trilogy from Santa Ynez valley lawyer Alef. In 1829, a light-skinned daughter is born to a young slave on a Georgia plantation. Rejected by her real mother, baby Mary Ellen is taken into the big house under the tutelage of the plantation owner's childless wife; before dying of cancer, she entrusts the 13-year-old's future to a friend, Americus Price, leaving her a substantial inheritance and granting her freedom at age 18. After years passing for white in a New Orleans convent school, Mary Ellen comes of age, visits Price's Missouri plantation and travels on to Cincinnati, where she encounters the abolitionist John Brown. By 1849, disappointment and trauma in Ohio lead Mary Ellen to seek a fresh start in California. On her way by ship, she nurses the Scotsman Thomas Brand back to health and assists the embittered ex-Manhattanite Colbraith O'Brien. The trio then make their way to San Francisco, where Mary Ellen, Colbraith, Brand and a large cast of minor characters enter the fast-growing town's rough politics and its burgeoning net of business endeavors, from real estate holdings to squabbling fire companies. Will strangers from her past wreck Mary Ellen's new life by revealing her racial heritage? Alef based his key characters on real people: an afterword, timeline and bibliography lay out his historical sources. Readers will enjoy keeping track of Mary Ellen's complex life and the intricate dealings among the San Francisco figures she meets. Alef's prose, if hardly subtle, keeps the plot moving, and his settings are effective. This entertaining saga will leave many readers eager for the planned sequels. (Oct.)