L.A. 56 is a fast paced true crime police story that reads like a noir classic. Writer Joel Engel paints a dark picture of a sadistic rapist and racist’s cops that even James Ellroy can’t pen in his fiction. The year is 1956 and there have been a rash of rapes in predominately white areas in and around L.A. The victims are white, the perpetrator is black and to make matters worst he’s posing as a cop. White officers have made up their minds that a former black police officer is the culprit. But one good cop, Detective Galindo who worked the Black Dahlia murder case, is determined to get at the truth.
Most Wanted is the first person account of Massachusetts’s State Police Col. Thomas Foley who spent nearly twenty years of his career trying to capture the most wanted man in America. From the late 50’s through the early 1990’s Irish gangster Whitey Bulger was the most vicious and violent gangster in Boston history. He was feared by politicians, the Mafia and law enforcement alike. After more than a decade on the run Whitey Bulger was finally captured by the FBI. But Col. Foley knew the painful truth. The FBI may have captured him, but it was the FBI that gave him a license to kill and shielded him at every turn for years.
I understand Whitey Bulger is the basis for Jack Nicholson's character in Scorsese's film, The Departed (even though the film is basically a remake of the Hong Kong-made Infernal Affairs). What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI think that you like true crime and/or police procedurals! You would probably enjoy The Iceman, a new book by Anthony Bruno or Black Dahlia Avenger: a Genius for Murder, by Steve Hodel, published in 2006.
ReplyDeleteHave you read Sutton by JR Moehringer? It's not quite True Crime. It's fictionalized true crime. I really like Moehringer as an author, but haven't picked this one up just yet.
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