The ratings and reviews of this book seem to be overwhelmingly positive, and I see it's been turned into a TV series. Still, I wasn't all that impressed, though it was something to read in the small hours to help me go back to sleep.
The central conceit is that it's a dual biography of mobster Mickey Cohen and LA Police Chief William H Parker. But Cohen is a lesser figure, and his biography and career are not all that interesting. Parker bestrode the city as it grew, and dominated its politics and its policing, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Buntin really wanted to write a biography of him, or should have anyway.
The author has had a lot of help from the LAPD and various Parker-related foundations and organisations, so though it's pretty obvious from reading the book that the man was a megalomaniac and a racist, and a right-wing operator who couldn't get on with other right-wing operators (especially J Edgar Hoover), the author doesn't want to say so. The book almost ends with Parker's death, though there's a longish epilogue that covers the 1991 riots. It's not clear whether it wants to say that the riots were Parker's legacy, or that if he'd been in charge they would have been crushed more effectively - I think it wanted to have it both ways, which makes it confusing and unsatisfactory.
I read this on kindle, so I'm not putting up a cover picture.
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