From the Big Sleep to gangsta rap, Mannix to Rage Against the Machine and Play It as It Lays to the King/Drew morass, L.A. is the sun-washed city of dreams and despair chronicled in books and films and music of varying shades and notes of noir. Downtown becomes a battleground of gentrification, South Central is transformed from black to Latino, and the Valley bristles while property values and tempers spike in once working-class Venice; it’s all part of the constantly unfolding plot that mystery writer Gary Phillips — Bangers, Monkology, etc. — reflects on in his work and others.
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