A Bright and Guilty Place by Richard Rayner
Hard-boiled detectives, scheming starlets, and tabloid trials fill this gritty chronicle of how Los Angeles lost its soul.
Brilliant.. the nonfiction equivalent of the Raymond Chandler classics [but] utterly truthful, fantastic and new. * Los Angeles Times *
A brilliant retelling of Los Angeles history and noir ... * The New York Times editors’ choice *
An engrossing account, which features more villainy and skulduggery than can be easily summarised ... * Associated Press *
You'll really love A Bright and Guilty Place. * The Washington Post *
It's rich, dense, mesmerising, encyclopaedic ... * Paul Greengrass, director *
Richard Rayner makes masterful use of his material-sex, murder, corruption, greed, and the invention of noir-to concoct a seething, sinful tale worthy of Raymond Chandler himself. This is narrative nonfiction at its best: meticulously researched, deftly drawn, and more compelling than anything the imagination might dare to conjure. * Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City *
A Bright and Guilty Place is a seductively readable knot of intersecting stories about pre-noir Los Angeles. It has an intriguing shape, a spectrum of emotions, beckoning suspense, satisfying inevitability, and a flavour all its own, at once familiar and strange. * Luc Sante, author of Low Life *
Thanks to this detailed and cinematic narrative of desperate people in a desperate city, LA the place, LA the novel, and LA the film are fused into a tour de force of LA noir. * Kevin Starr, University of Southern California *
A brilliant retelling of Los Angeles history and noir ... * The New York Times editors’ choice *
An engrossing account, which features more villainy and skulduggery than can be easily summarised ... * Associated Press *
You'll really love A Bright and Guilty Place. * The Washington Post *
It's rich, dense, mesmerising, encyclopaedic ... * Paul Greengrass, director *
Richard Rayner makes masterful use of his material-sex, murder, corruption, greed, and the invention of noir-to concoct a seething, sinful tale worthy of Raymond Chandler himself. This is narrative nonfiction at its best: meticulously researched, deftly drawn, and more compelling than anything the imagination might dare to conjure. * Karen Abbott, author of Sin in the Second City *
A Bright and Guilty Place is a seductively readable knot of intersecting stories about pre-noir Los Angeles. It has an intriguing shape, a spectrum of emotions, beckoning suspense, satisfying inevitability, and a flavour all its own, at once familiar and strange. * Luc Sante, author of Low Life *
Thanks to this detailed and cinematic narrative of desperate people in a desperate city, LA the place, LA the novel, and LA the film are fused into a tour de force of LA noir. * Kevin Starr, University of Southern California *
Richard Rayner is the author of The Cloud Sketcher, Drake's Fortune, The Associates, and several other books. His writing appears in The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. He is an Englishman living in Los Angeles.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781849012058 |
| ISBN 10 | 1849012059 |
| Title | A Bright and Guilty Place |
| Author | Richard Rayner |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2010-01-07 |
| Number of pages | 336 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |