A bright and guilty place : murder, corruption, and L.A.'s scandalous coming of age

Resource Information

The work A bright and guilty place : murder, corruption, and L.A.'s scandalous coming of age represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Internet Archive - Open Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

A bright and guilty place : murder, corruption, and L.A.'s scandalous coming of age

Title remainder

murder, corruption, and L.A.'s scandalous coming of age

Statement of responsibility

Richard Rayner

Creator

• Rayner, Richard, 1955-

Subject

• Organized crime -- California | Los Angeles -- History
• Murder -- California | Los Angeles -- History
• Political corruption -- California | Los Angeles -- History

Language

eng

Summary

1920s Los Angeles was the fastest growing city in the world, mad with oil fever, get-rich-quick schemes, celebrity scandals, and religious fervor. It was also rife with organized crime, with a mayor and a DA in the pocket of the syndicates. Here, historian 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 got noir. Key events include the theft of water from the Owens River Valley that let L.A grow, the Teapot Dome scandal, and the emergence of crime writers like Raymond Chandler who helped mythologize L.A.--From publisher description

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

364.109794/9409042

Illustrations

• illustrations
• plates

Index

index present

LC call number

HV6795.L6

LC item number

R39 2009

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

• dictionaries
• bibliography