A Bright and Guilty Place
Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming of Age
Published on 23. June 2009
240 pages
978-0-385-53011-8 (ISBN)
Description
Best Book of the Year
The Los Angeles Times • The Washington Post
Los Angeles was the fastest growing city in the world, mad with oil fever, get-rich-quick schemes, and celebrity scandals. It was also rife with organized crime, with a mayor in the pocket of the syndicates and a DA taking bribes to throw trials. In A Bright and Guilty Place, Richard Rayner narrates the entwined lives of two men, Dave Clark and Leslie White, who were caught up in the crimes, murders, and swindles of the day. Over a few transformative years, as the boom times shaded into the Depression, the adventures of Clark and White would inspire pulp fiction and replace L.A.'s reckless optimism with a new cynicism. Together, theirs is the tale of how the city of sunshine went noir.
The Los Angeles Times • The Washington Post
Los Angeles was the fastest growing city in the world, mad with oil fever, get-rich-quick schemes, and celebrity scandals. It was also rife with organized crime, with a mayor in the pocket of the syndicates and a DA taking bribes to throw trials. In A Bright and Guilty Place, Richard Rayner narrates the entwined lives of two men, Dave Clark and Leslie White, who were caught up in the crimes, murders, and swindles of the day. Over a few transformative years, as the boom times shaded into the Depression, the adventures of Clark and White would inspire pulp fiction and replace L.A.'s reckless optimism with a new cynicism. Together, theirs is the tale of how the city of sunshine went noir.
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06/2010
Anchor Books
€19.70
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06/2009
Bantam Books
€43.00
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Person
Richard Rayner is the author of Drake's Fortune, The Cloud Sketcher, The Associates, and several other books. His writing appears in The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.
www.brightandguiltyplace.com
www.brightandguiltyplace.com
Content
- Intro
- Other Books By This Author
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Cast of Characters
- Chapter 1 - The Mystery Is Announced
- Chapter 2 - Dam Disaster
- Chapter 3 - A Hero Named Clark
- Chapter 4 - Angel City
- Chapter 5 - The Gangster Goes Down
- Chapter 6 - Oil, Law, and Scandal
- Chapter 7 - Our Detective Learns the Ropes
- Chapter 8 - Shots in the Night
- Chapter 9 - Beverly Hills C.S.I.
- Chapter 10 - Cover-Up
- Chapter 11 - Good Time Charlie
- Chapter 12 - Systems Under Siege
- Chapter 13 - Reach for a Typewriter
- Chapter 14 - Raymond Chandler-Oil Man!
- Chapter 15 - Entrapment of a News Hound
- Chapter 16 - Running with the Foxes
- Chapter 17 - Zig-Zags of Graft
- Chapter 18 - Red Hot Bow
- Chapter 19 - The Gutting of Clara
- Chapter 20 - Hard Times in Lotus-Land
- Chapter 21 - Double Death on Sunset
- Chapter 22 - The Ballad of Dave Clark
- Chapter 23 - They Can Hang You
- Chapter 24 - Telling It All
- Chapter 25 - Verdicts
- Chapter 26 - A Hooker's Tale
- Chapter 27 - Music of the City
- Chapter 28 - Black Mask Merry-Go-Round
- Chapter 29 - Sad Song
- Chapter 30 - Lives Go On
- Chapter 31 - A Personal Note
- Acknowledgments
- Sources
- Bibliography
- Photo Credits
- About the Author
- Copyright
