What to Read Next: City of Angels? More Like City of Murders
Volume 9, Issue #8
Happy Friday, readers!
This week I’m (metaphorically) visiting Los Angeles — a city I’ve never actually been to in person. I know plenty of people who love the place, but honestly I don’t even have a desire to visit. Based on what I’ve read about LA, it’s mostly a seedy, murdery place full of awful, fake people (I’m joking, of course (sort of…)). Regardless of your feelings re: the City of Angels, the books featured today are great.
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To the books!
A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper
The cast: A concierge of illegal goods and services for the ultra wealthy. A defense lawyer who works with some less-than-savory characters. A live-streamer who hunts down the most sordid scenes he can find in LA’s dark underbelly.
The crimes: a powerful Hollywood producer is exposed as a pedophile, women start turning up brutally murdered, and some very powerful people are sure their wealth will protect them.
These threads are separate at the start — first, we have to get to know the characters and understand the foundation of the plot. With fast-paced, sometimes even staccato sentences, Harper quickly gets us up to speed. In addition to the humans, the city of LA itself becomes a starring player too. In any dark noir, the setting has to feel real and gritty; Harper knocks it out of the park on that front.
Working from three perspectives is not easy, especially when they don’t obviously connect right away. But Harper astutely manages these different voices and weaves them together at just the right time. It makes for the kind of satisfying result that makes you go, “Ah, that’s how this all fits together.”
The title of this book is certainly accurate: there’s a lot of hard-to-stomach violence in these pages. But it all serves the larger purpose of the story — and for what it’s worth, I think it’s better to consume this kind of content in book form vs. in a visual format on a screen.
Harper is definitely working in the vein of violent but wildly compelling authors like S. A. Cosby and James Ellroy — both of whom showed up in the acknowledgements. There was also a lot of Thomas Harris’s influence to be found in this story. Jordan Harper had been on my to-read list for a long time and I’m glad I finally dove in with A Violent Masterpiece. I’ll certainly be reading more of him.
Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson by Jeff Guinn
Note: This slightly edited review was originally published in 2022.
Jeff Guinn is one of my favorite non-fiction writers. Within the first dozen pages of any of his books, you can tell he’s a master storyteller. In Manson, he shares the story and cultural context of how Charles Manson became a household name in 1969.
Guinn covers Manson’s life in its entirety: his rocky childhood and shockingly early entry into a life of crime, his multiple lengthy stays in correctional facilities, his foolhardy dreams of becoming a famous musician, and, of course, his descent into murderous cult leader.
And, as the subtitle promises, Guinn covers the “Times” too: What was it about the America of the 1960s that allowed all the players in this story — from the murderers and victims alike — to end up where they did on August 9th and 10th, 1969?
All of Guinn’s books have been 5-star reads for me and this one was no different. It’s a must-read if you’re at all interested in true crime or the cultural history of the ‘60s.
Unlike the characters in this week’s books, please be good to each other.
-Jeremy