Tony Blanche and Brad Schreiber
Death in Paradise
An Illustrated History of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner

"Blanche and Schreiber have finally done the impossible — that even I could not achieve — publish a book with photographs that should be censored." — Larry Flynt

"A colorful history of the L.A. County coroner's department." — Los Angeles Times

"A fascinating book, amalgamating a vast amount of information in an accessible and captivating read." — Dr. Miriam Sperber, radiologist and author of Healing Connections: Bridging Mind and Body

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

What is it about Yeats' words that have always spoken so poignantly to writers who take California as their subject? Maybe it's the literal size of the place, or the symbolic stature it's assumed in the popular imagination. Maybe it's California's ironic unwillingness to become the mythic El Dorado we always hoped it would be, the final realization of Manifest Destiny. Or maybe it's the knowledge that if we can't make it work here — in this paradise of orange groves and palm trees and perpetual sunshine — then we can't make it work anywhere.

Available in paperback for the first time, Death in Paradise is a unique tome. A captivating blend of Hollywood Babylon-style gossip and legitimate forensic investigation — complete with hundreds of photographs and illustrations — it takes readers behind the scenes with the L.A. County Coroner's Office, revealing the details of some of the most notorious deaths of the twentieth century. Beginning with Wild West-era lynchings and turn-of-the-century mass-homicides in Chinatown, the authors demonstrate how the coroner's job has evolved into a state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar operation responsible for cleaning up the 200 deaths that occur in L.A. every day. In addition to the science of death, Death in Paradise also examines the cultural and political atmospheres surrounding L.A.'s most infamous murders, suicides, and overdoses: from Barbara La Marr to Bugsy Siegel, the Black Dahlia to Marilyn Monroe, Janis Joplin to Bobby Kennedy.

Tony Blanche is a writer living in Santa Barbara, California. Brad Schreiber is a writer, teacher, and vice president of Storytech Literary Consulting.