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A Bright and Guilty Place: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming of Age
Best Book of the Year
The Los Angeles Times • The Washington Post
Los Angeles was the fastest growing city in the world, mad with oil fever, get-rich-quick schemes, and celebrity scandals. It was also rife with organized crime, with a mayor in the pocket of the syndicates and a DA taking bribes to throw trials. In A Bright and Guilty Place, Richard Rayner narrates the entwi...more
The Los Angeles Times • The Washington Post
Los Angeles was the fastest growing city in the world, mad with oil fever, get-rich-quick schemes, and celebrity scandals. It was also rife with organized crime, with a mayor in the pocket of the syndicates and a DA taking bribes to throw trials. In A Bright and Guilty Place, Richard Rayner narrates the entwi...more
Hardcover, 288 pages
Published
June 23rd 2009
by Doubleday
(first published 2009)
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The writing is a bit loose and sloppy, but I love reading about buildings and intersections I just walked past not too long ago. I will definitely be writing down a list of buildings to visit next time I go into downtown LA. Still, it's kind of depressing to realize the city was built on corruption and murder and abuse of innocent people (not rock and roll).
This is a story that cannot be made up, although it sure sounds like it. Los Angeles in the 1920's was coming of age. The coming of age meant murder, corruption, movie stars, and politics that mirrored the cities of Chicago and New York.
The story is told through the lives of two individualists who started on the right side of the law and only one remained there.
Dave Clark and Leslie White both worked to the City of Los Angeles. Clark was a prosecutor and White was a cr...more
The story is told through the lives of two individualists who started on the right side of the law and only one remained there.
Dave Clark and Leslie White both worked to the City of Los Angeles. Clark was a prosecutor and White was a cr...more
If this book had been a straightforward narrative account of L.A.'s history from the end of the First World War through the Great Depression, it could have been brilliant. The two central characters, in all their indulgences and idiosyncrasies, beautifully embody the tale of crime and corruption, fame and its misfortunes, all under the brilliant lights of Hollywood.
But A Bright and Guilty Place is two books, really. One is that account from an experienced Los Angeles journalist, a tens...more
But A Bright and Guilty Place is two books, really. One is that account from an experienced Los Angeles journalist, a tens...more
Richard Rayner focuses on the careers of two men, Leslie White and Dave Clark, to detail the history of Los Angeles in the turbulent 1920s and '30s. The city's population was exploding in the boom years of the '20s, and its government and police force were thoroughly corrupt. Movie stars, oil men, gangsters and countless others flooded into the city in the hope of making their names, their fortunes, or both. Newspapers exploited the sensations of the day, often with little regard for the truth, ...more
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Bound: The City of Shady Angels - SunPost Weekly July 15, 2010
http://bit.ly/9k8i3U
John Hood
If cities are chicks – and if a city’s worth anything, it better be a chick – then L.A. is one shady lady. You might also say she’s a chick in heat. Wanton, insatiable, and faithful only as far as the next kiss, she’s the kinda chick a man will fall for, kill for and even die for, even as she’s walking out the door.
L.A. is also a city of deep and often creepy secrets. Li...more
http://bit.ly/9k8i3U
John Hood
If cities are chicks – and if a city’s worth anything, it better be a chick – then L.A. is one shady lady. You might also say she’s a chick in heat. Wanton, insatiable, and faithful only as far as the next kiss, she’s the kinda chick a man will fall for, kill for and even die for, even as she’s walking out the door.
L.A. is also a city of deep and often creepy secrets. Li...more
Rayner, Richard. A BRIGHT AND GUILTY PLACE: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.’s Scandalous Coming of Age. (2009). **. I’ve read several of Rayner’s earlier works and found them to be relatively well written and cogent accounts of specific people or events. In this one, I found myself confused. The hint that the reader might be in trouble starts on p. xi, “Cast of Characters,” that continues on to p. xiv, followed by a paragraph that lists an additional minor cast of characters consisting of ei...more
Although I don't know if there's an actual category in crime fiction called "LA Noir," no reader of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler or the countless crime writers who have followed in their footsteps would have any problem recognizing the phrase. All cities are corrupt and crime-ridden, but Los Angeles, so hot and sunny, so dark and sinful, has a paradigm all its own. And the truth about the place is equal to the fiction. Richard Rayner's account is a sharp, stark, black and white...more
There's lots to like in the historical survey of a rich period in Los Angeles criminal history, specifically the roaring 20s. But it's also exemplifies many of the problems with modern publishing which Andre Schiffrin talks about in his brilliant and highly recommended study The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read.
Maybe it's unfair to single out Rayner's book, because he did do a lot of great work and there's a lot...more
Maybe it's unfair to single out Rayner's book, because he did do a lot of great work and there's a lot...more
Since I'm a recent Los Angeles transplant [been here two weeks now!], I've decided to read some non-fiction set in Los Angeles and California. There seems to be a decent amount of books related to crime, the movie industry and the 1920s when it comes to LA. First up, Richard Rayner's look at the seedy, corrupt side of Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s by looking at some well known court cases and the men and women who were involved. Rayner includes not only the lawyers, police, judges on the la...more
Rayner tells the story of L.A. in the 1920's and early 30's as film noir. He portrays a dynamic city being built on the scrub, where the modern culture of greed and materialism rubbed shoulders with a flashy religious revivalism, all of it driven by the enthusiasms of folks who looked at their recent move to these sunny climes as a personal manifest destiny. As a former Angeleno whose family moved to the Golden State in the early 1900's, I have become fascinated with the mentality of those times...more
Outstanding nonfictional narrative weaving together the related stories of Leslie White (best known for his memoir Me, Detective) and David Clark (known, if at all, for his murder of crime boss Charlie Crawford). Along the way Rayner touches on everything from the life and career of Clara Bow to Einstein's friendship with Charlie Chaplin to the invention of hardboiled crime fiction. Every page had a new nugget I wanted to race off and find more details on.
Rayner provides a bibliograp...more
Rayner provides a bibliograp...more
While this narrative nonfiction tome is set in 20s and 30s Los Angeles, my soundtrack for reading was 60s and 70s California Soul. For whatever reason, it fits perfectly in my mind with what is essentially the true story of the birth of noir in America. It probably has to do with my own indoctrination into a love of noir through Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins tales. That fictional Los Angeles is dripping with soul. A Black soul. California Soul.
A Bright and Guilty Place, however, is a...more
A Bright and Guilty Place, however, is a...more
Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides
rated it
Recommends it for:
California history geeks
Recommended to Snail in Danger (Sid) by:
spotted it on a local bookstore's remainder shelves
Shelves:
american-history,
crime
This spent a great deal of time on the history of California before getting to what the jacket copy led me to believe was the meat of the story. Kage Baker has conditioned me to enjoy that — and the material about Raymond Chandler was interesting in its own right — but the actual story ended up feeling biographically shallow.
A lot of fun for me, great to tie in to the Chandler books I've been reading. Another glimpse into how truth is stranger - and wilder - than fiction. I'm hopelessly romantic about LA so this was good background info for me, essentially a detective "story" set against the backdrop of LA becoming the city it is - with an emphasis on it's crime & corruption. While Chicago had it's Capone, LA had "the system" something that I imagine is still deeply rooted there today.
The writing starts off a little dead in a kind of attempt to mimic the voice of gumshoe crime writers and newspapers of the era it describes. But as you get into it, you find Rayner has dug deep into Los Angeles' history to discover the half-understood stories and scandals that launched noir as the vehicle for documenting LA's shadowy history. Read the last chapter ("A Personal Note" 31) first to set the stage. In it, Rayner discusses the reasons he felt compelled to write this book an...more
As someone who is fascinated by historical accounts of Los Angeles, especially at the turn of the twentieth century, I was drawn to Rayner's book, A Bright and Guilty Place. While he does provide anecdotes of the notorious episodes of L.A.'s past, the narrative gets bogged down with inconsequential details. The idea behind the book is a good one. I am just not sure Rayner pulled it off.
This is a great book for those who love novels set in Los Angeles. There are interesting tidbits--Mr. oil-magnet Doheny was also a supported of the IRA and Mr. oil-magnet Dabney contributed to Caltech (think Dabney Lounge and Gerden where I was married.)
fascinating history of los angeles during the roaring twenties. creates a compelling back story of intertwined crime, politics, and big business that gives rise to modern day LA. it can make you long for what could have been.
Terry
added it
Good discussion on Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner. Review promised "Seabiscuit in the city" but I got bogged down and just read excerpts. I will say: excellent bibliography, notes, and index.
A fictionalized account of corruption in LA of 20s and 30s, but not well enough fictionalized. Too much wikipedia-like exposition, and wooden writing. Some great archival material.
I hesitated about a non-fiction book, but the creative way in which Richard Rayner wrote it, I felt like I was reading a novel. Suspense, murder, gossip, and much more.
I liked that this book reminded me how much I love la history, but felt the story Rayner told was not solid enough. Decent read, but not great.
I love reading @ the history of LA and loved learning about crime and corruption in my dad's Los Angeles. (okay, a tad before he was born). I wasn't on the edge of my seat but still a good read.
Lots of familiar names from growing up in LA (Doheny, Mulholland, Chandler) and other nostalgia (like being able to see the ocean from Greystone mansion in Beverly Hills) were interesting but not enough to cause me to read more than 120 pages in two whole weeks. On to something else.
This was a great read. Very fast paced but deep enough to get the history. This is a subject that gets my interest. Will try other books by Mr Rayner.
I loved Rayner's "A Bright and Guilty Place" about LA's murderous, coming of age, past. Chandler, Gardner & Hammett had it easy!
I am sort of obsessed with L.A. after being there a month ago.
I saw Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks eating a cheeseburger.
I saw Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks eating a cheeseburger.
Parts of the book I really loved, but I had this feeling he could have used a stronger editor to streamline the story and eliminate repetitiveness, and other little things that often drive me crazy. You almost got the feeling he wrote it straight without many rewrites. The story is interesting, and a there are lot of connections to the Black Mask crowd of writers.
For those like me with a secret fondness for historical gossip, a good read.
A fascinating read for anyone who knows LA now.
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Richard Rayner is a British author who now lives in Los Angeles. He was born on December 15, 1955 in the northern city of Bradford. Rayner attended schools in Yorkshire and Wales before studying philosophy and law at the University of Cambridge. He has worked as an editor at Time Out Magazine, in London, and later on the literary magazine Granta, then based in Cambridge.
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