L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

(Paperback)

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Description

Mid-century Los Angeles. A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America," a land of sunshine and orange groves, wholesome Midwestern values and Hollywood stars, protected by the world s most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men one L.A. s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.

Reviews

'Important and wonderfully enjoyable .A highly original and altogether splendid history that can be read for sheer pleasure and belongs on the shelf of indispensable books about America's most debated and least understood cities ..Utterly compelling reading.' Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles Times

Fascinating ... flat out entertaining - Michael Connelly

A highly original and altogether splendid history ... utterly compelling - Los Angeles Times - Tim Rutten

Buntin has unearthed in the history of 20th-century L.A. a pervasive criminality that is far more appalling than anything to be found even in the most brutal novels of James Ellroy. - Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley

Completely entertaining ... a colourful and entirely different take on the vices of Tinseltown. - Daily Beast - Gerald Posner

Dragnet, One Adam Twelve, Police Story, LA Confidential all rolled into one captivating book. Buntin nails it in this great read. - LAPD Chief William Bratton

Fascinating ... flat out entertaining - Michael Connelly

A highly original and altogether splendid history ... utterly compelling - Los Angeles Times - Tim Rutten

Author Bio

John Buntin, a staff writer for Governing Magazine (90,000 subscribers) and a former case writer at Harvard s Kennedy School of Government, has made a specialty of writing about law enforcement, and in the inner circles of government he is well known as an expert on the subject. His study of how Bill Bratton and Rudy Giuliani reduced crime drastically in New York, and his profile of Boston s successful campaign to rid the city of youthful gun violence both became standard case studies in government courses across the United States. Following Bratton s career when the innovative police chief moved to Los Angeles, Buntin uncovered a history too fascinating and too important to ignore.