Granted "unfettered access" to one of the LAPD's investigative units, Homicide Special, Los Angeles Times
crime reporter Corwin (The Killing Season
; And Still We Rise
) shadowed several veteran detectives during 2001 and 2002. While not recounting every homicide case he observed, the author vividly renders a handful that exemplify the range of entrenched social fissures and seedy criminality that have long defined Los Angeles. From its ethnic underbelly to the unnoticed fringes of Hollywood fame, the investigations include the murders of a struggling screenwriter and a daughter of a former Las Vegas mobster; a Japanese mother and daughter found bound together and floating in a marina weeks after their deaths; a beautiful immigrant prostitute with complicated connections to the Russian mafia; a teenage girl killed 38 years ago—a "cold case" that was reopened by a pair of devoted detectives; and Bonny Lee Bakley, wife of actor Robert Blake, whose bloody death became chum for a tabloid feeding frenzy. With a touch of Chandleresque panache, Corwin's true crime reads like vintage noir, delivering taut dialogue sprinkled with off-color wisecracks and lyrical passages describing horizons "veiled by a tawny band of smog" or harbors filled with the "thrumming of boat engines and the squall of gulls." But unlike the ham-and-eggs detectives of Chandler's era, these latter-day California cops (the unit worked on the O.J. Simpson case) wear fancy suits purchased in Thailand, moonlight as sous-chefs and munch on "pumpkinseed-crusted three-cheese chile rellenos with papaya salsa." (Jan.)
