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

New
Paperback
2014
$11.91

The epic struggle for control of Los Angeles and the history of the 30s, 40s, and 50s in America's dream city. Now the FOX UK TV series MOB CITY.
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.
The Mob had to contend with downtown business (the Chandlers, of LA Times fame), City Hall, and above all the LAPD - and the story is gripping. In these pages you will find the kind of gangsters, cops, pols, and madams familiar from The Big Sleep, Chinatown, and LA Confidential - only this time it's non-fiction, a serious portrait of how the 20th century's most dangerously unaccountable, intrusive model of pre-emptive policing got started. It's a story with great resonance today.

Synopsis

The epic struggle for control of Los Angeles and the history of the 30s, 40s, and 50s in America's dream city. Now the FOX UK TV series MOB CITY.

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.

The Mob had to contend with downtown business (the Chandlers, of LA Times fame), City Hall, and above all the LAPD - and the story is gripping. In these pages you will find the kind of gangsters, cops, pols, and madams familiar from The Big Sleep, Chinatown, and LA Confidential - only this time it's non-fiction, a serious portrait of how the 20th century's most dangerously unaccountable, intrusive model of pre-emptive policing got started. It's a story with great resonance today.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 432
Publisher: Orion
Published: 13 Feb 2014
ISBN 10: 1409154157
ISBN 13: 9781409154150
Book Overview: The epic struggle for control of Los Angeles and the history of the 30s, 40s, and 50s in America's dream city. Now the FOX UK TV series MOB CITY.

Media Reviews

Fascinating... flat out entertaining * Michael Connelly *
A highly original and altogether splendid history... utterly compelling -- Tim Rutten * LOS ANGELES TIMES *
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. -- Jonathan Yardley * WASHINGTON POST *
Completely entertaining... a colourful and entirely different take on the vices of Tinseltown. -- Gerald Posner * DAILY BEAST *
Dragnet, One Adam Twelve, Police Story, LA Confidential all rolled into one captivating book. Buntin nails it in the great read. -- LAPD Chief William Bratton
Fascinating ... flat out entertaining -- Michael Connelly
A highly original and altogether splendid history ... utterly compelling -- Tim Rutten * Los Angeles Times *
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. -- Jonathan Yardley * Washington Post *
Completely entertaining ... a colourful and entirely different take on the vices of Tinseltown. -- Gerald Posner * Daily Beast *
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

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.