Southern California novelist Don Winslow’s latest thriller, “The Dawn Patrol” (Knopf) begins with a deceptively causal storyline. Although two brief scenes portend the serious overtones of the narrative arc, for the first 75 pages or so the reader can’t help but wonder where this almost smug and annoyingly snappy oh-we’re-all-so- cool tale of a group of fun-lovin’ surfer dudes (and one drop dead gorgeous surferette) is headed.
      Boone Daniels is part of a group of friends who call themselves The Dawn Patrol, so named because they meet on a San Diego beach every morning to hang out and ride the waves together. And such a fun time they have; it’s a life of seemingly eternal adolescence – although one of the group is a cop and another is a waitress, for the most part, the camaraderie of this happy-go-lucky coterie seems just a little too good to be true.
      But gradually Winslow introduces the darkness beneath the perfect wave. Boone is a former cop himself, and naturally something terrible happened on the job – on a missing child case he has a dispute with his rogue partner perhaps causing the death of a young child. His exit from the force and subsequent mental demise ruin his perfect relationship with Sunny, the female member of the group.
      So now Boone works as an occasional private detective and lives primarily off the largess of a generous benefactor. When a serious (but beautiful, natch) attorney, Petra, comes to him for help in finding a stripper whose testimony is crucial in defending her firm in a lawsuit from Don Silver, a vicious strip club owner, Boone reluctantly agrees to help.
      At times the patter between these two resembles nothing so much as a Tracy/Hepburn movie from the 50s – it’s cute but…where’s the beef? We’ve heard it all before.
      Ah, but just when you think this apparently vacuous summer read is nothing more than a smart-mouthed lark, it slams you right back in the mouth with a calculated shift into the very issues Boone is still trying to get over from his past – the exploitation of children. The action revs up to a pulsating pace, cracks appear in the formerly tightly-knit friendships of the Dawn Patrol, and while the surfing culture awaits the arrival of huge wave, it’s increasingly clear that everyone’s golden summer is about to become bloodstained and grim.
      Winslow may pack a few too many quirky characterizations into his muscular story, but by the redemptive conclusion it doesn’t matter – he’s completely convinced us of both his skill at constructing a rousing thriller and his deep sense of morality.