Los Angeles, 1956. Glamorous. Prosperous. The place to see and be seen. But beneath the shiny exterior beats a dark heart. For when the sun goes down, L.A. becomes the noir city of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential or Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins novels. Segregation is the unwritten law of the land. The growing black population is expected to keep to South Central. The white cops are encouraged to deal out harsh street justice. In L.A. '56, Joel Engel paints a tense, moody portrait of the city as a devil weaves his way through the shadows.
While R&amp;B and hot jazz spill out of record shops and clubs and all-night burger stands, Willie Fields cruises past in his dark green DeSoto, looking for a woman on whom he can bestow the gift of his company. His brilliant idea: Buy a tin badge in the five-and-ten to go along with his big flashlight and Luger and pretend to be an undercover vice cop. The young white girls doing it with their boyfriends in the lovers' lanes dotting the L.A. hills would never say no to a cop. Into the car they go for a ride downtown on a "morals charge," before he kicks out the young man in the middle of nowhere and takes the girl for a ride she'll spend a lifetime trying to forget.
There's a bad guy on the loose in the City of Angels.
Enter Detective Danny Galindo-he'd worked the Black Dahlia case back in '47 as a rookie. The suave Latino-one of the few in the department-is able to move easily among the white detectives. Maybe it's all those stories he's sold to Jack Webb for Dragnet. When Todd Roark, a black ex-cop, is arrested, Galindo knows he's innocent. But there's no sympathy for Roark among the white cops on the LAPD; Galindo will have to go it alone.
There's only one problem: The victims aren't coming forward. The white press ignores the story, too, making Galindo's job that much more difficult. And now he's fallen in love with one of the rapist's first victims. If he's ever found out, he can kiss his badge good-bye.
With his back up against a wall, Galindo realizes that it will take some good old-fashioned Hollywood magic to take down a devil in the City of Angels.

L.A. '56: A Devil in the City of Angels

History

ENGEL, Joel

Americas

Thomas Dunne Books

Presents the inspirational true story of Jim Morris's departure from the minor leagues after a string of injuries, his career as a high school physics teacher, and his eventual return to the minors followed by an all-star career in the majors. 75,000 first printing.

The Oldest Rookie: Big-League Dreams from a Small-Town Guy

Sports & Outdoors

Morris, Jim

Biographies

Little. Brown and Company

He Played A Boy's Game. He Lived A Man's Life. As a lonely child, Jim Morris took one thing with him wherever his family moved-his ability to hit and throw a baseball. For Jim, the passion of becoming a major-league ballplayer was his anchor and inspiration...until injuries and life got in the way. A decade after Jim walked away from the minors and began a life of fatherhood and mortgage payments, he made a promise to the hardscrabble high-school team he coached: If they could win their local championship, he would try out again for the big leagues. They did-and he did. Now, in this wondrous, heart-tugging book, Jim Morris tells the story of his remarkable life and his amazing journey to the Big Show at the age of thirty-five...and how he finally fulfilled his childhood dream.

The Rookie: The Incredible True Story of a Man Who Never Gave Up on His Dream

Biographies & Memoirs

Grand Central Publishing

Traces the story of a brigadier-general and Vietnam soldier who endured the Jim Crow attitudes of the segregated South throughout his youth only to find himself struggling for survival at the side of his Ku Klux Klan-member captain, with whom he was downed for three weeks in the Vietnamese jungles. Reprint.

By Duty Bound: Survival and Redemption in Vietnam

Ware Jr., Brig. Gen. Ezell

Military

NAL.

Traces the story of a brigadier-general and Vietnam soldier who endured the Jim Crow attitudes of the segregated south throughout his youth only to find himself struggling for survival at the side of his Ku Klux Klan-member captain, with whom he was downed for three weeks in the Vietnamese jungles. 40,000 first printing.

By Duty Bound: Survival and Redemption in a Time of War

Community & Culture

Dutton

Heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman describes his childhood, family, ring failures, and his success in reclaiming his title at the age of forty-five through determination and humor.

By George: The Autobiography of George Foreman

FOREMAN, George

Simon&Schuster

A no-holds-barred look at the complex and driven visionary who created Star Trek gives a backstage portrait based on inside sources that reveals the whole man, alcoholic, self-promoting, womanizing, yet intensely creative.

Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind "Star Trek"

Arts & Literature

Hyperion

Before any lights, camera, or action, there's the script--arguably the most important single element in filmmaking, and Screenwriters on Screen-Writing introduces the men and women responsible for the screenplays that have produced some of the most successful and acclaimed films in Hollywood history. In each interview, not only do the writers explore the craft and technique of creating a filmic blueprint, but they recount the colorful tales of coming up in the ranks of the movie business and of bringing their stories to the screen, in a way that only natural-born storytellers such as themselves can. These and other screenwriters have garnered the attention of the movie-going population not only with their words, but with headlines announcing the sales of their scripts for hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. Anyone interested in writing, making, or learning about movies will enjoy reading this fascinating behind-the-scenes compendium that brings together some of the most prominent and talented screenwriters in modern-day filmmaking. Screenwriters interviewed include: Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost), Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Amy Holden Jones (Indecent Proposal), Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs), Horton Foote (To Kill a Mockingbird, Tender Mercies), Andrew Bergman (The In-Laws), Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands), Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King), and Robert Towne (Chinatown, Shampoo).

Screenwriters on Screen-Writing: The Best in the Business Discuss Their Craft

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Hollywood's most respected screenwriters tell intriguing and instructive tales of their successes, failures, aspirations and inspirations in the movie business.Academy Award-winning movies such as American Beauty, Shakespeare in Love, and Forrest Gump are remembered, long after Oscar(R) night, for their stellar performances, their breathtaking beauty, and their transcendent scenes. But before any of these films were directed, lit, performed, or edited, they needed to be written. Screenwriting is, arguably, the most important and underrated role in Hollywood.
Now Joel Engel brings together interviews with the best screenwriters working today, each of whom has won an Academy Award for his or her work, and each of whom shares a wealth of knowledge, insight, and experience about this little understood facet of moviemaking. In each essay, writers such as Alan Ball (American Beauty), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Marc Norman (Shakespeare in Love), Tom Schulman (Dead Poet's Society), Kurt Luedtke (Out of Africa), John Irving (The Cider House Rules), and many others explore and explain their craft and technique. Anyone interested in writing, making, or learning about movies will enjoy this behind-the-scenes compilation of wisdom and advice from Hollywood's natural-born storytellers.

Oscar-Winning Screenwriters On Screenwriting: The Award-Winning Best in the Business Discuss Their Craft

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ENGEL, Joel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by ENGEL, Joel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by ENGEL, Joel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

L.A. '56: A Devil in the City of Angels

The Oldest Rookie: Big-League Dreams from a Small-Town Guy

The Rookie: The Incredible True Story of a Man Who Never Gave Up on His Dream

By Duty Bound: Survival and Redemption in Vietnam

By Duty Bound: Survival and Redemption in a Time of War

By George: The Autobiography of George Foreman

Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind "Star Trek"

Screenwriters on Screen-Writing: The Best in the Business Discuss Their Craft

Gene Roddenberry: The Myth and the Man Behind "Star Trek"

Oscar-Winning Screenwriters On Screenwriting: The Award-Winning Best in the Business Discuss Their Craft