The book is a second bite of LA noir by the author, his previous title Sins of the city came out as a paperback in 1999 and like this new book it was basically news photos and captions. Whether several hundred photos from newspaper files is worth this chunky book with its rather lavish production is debatable. The twenty-one page illustrated introduction leads into the seven chapters: Down these mean streets; Murder & mayhem; Glamourland; Kooks, crackpots & salvation; Headline crime; Crime & corruption.
I thought it was rather unfortunate that, considering the subject matter, the pages look rather bland with large amounts of white space that could have been used for a much more flamboyant presentation. Maybe some large newspaper front pages (there are some but too small to read the copy) maybe a collage here and there, lots of police mug shots over a spread, some side-bars on colored panels. Possibly Taschen deliberately underplayed the look of the pages and relied on the nine colorful magazine inserts to add some sparkle.
They are between eight and sixteen pages, printed on tabloid paper and not as wide as the book's pages, designed to look like the real thing, with ads on some pages. Apart from the intro these magazine inserts provide the only long reads in the book, everything else are just picture captions. The Official Detective July, 1958 is all about Lana Turner and a Mickey Cohen mobster, True Detective May, 1933 deals with the kidnapping of twelve year old Marion Parker, Confidential November (no year) has an article about Marilyn Monroe and her lovers, Click August 1939 features a photo essay about the gambling ships anchored three miles off the coast.
There is an Appendices in the back pages with twenty movies or books that captured the noir of the city and illustrated with a poster or book cover. The three page index only refers to the news photos and nothing from the magazine inserts.
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