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

John Buntin

Crown, Apr 6, 2010 - True Crime - 448 pages

Now the TNT Original Series MOB CITY

Midcentury 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.

Contents

• part two The Struggle for Authority: 41
• Getting Away with Murder Inc: 82
• part three The Enemy Within: 121
• part four All the Way or Nothing: 227
• Epilogue: 333
• Acknowledgments: 345
• Select Bibliography: 391
• Credits: 407

About the author

JOHN BUNTIN is a staff writer at Governing magazine, where he covers crime and urban affairs. A native of Mississippi, Buntin graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and has worked as a case writer for Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. A former resident of Southern California, he now lives in Washington, D.C., with his family.

Bibliographic information

• Title: L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City
• Author: John Buntin
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Crown, 2010
• ISBN: 0307352080, 9780307352088
• Length: 448 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY); Social Science / Criminology; True Crime / Organized Crime