L.A. Rex Hardback - 2006

by Will Beall

A fierce and ferocious, grittily cinematic debut set in South Central Los Angeles that recalls both Richard Price and James Ellroy-with a soundtrack from Death Row records-by an LAPD antigang officer who continues to patrol the streets he writes about.

As far as everyone in the squad room knows, Ben Halloran is completely freshto the streets of the 77th Division, a soft kid from the West Side who's decided to become a cop and just happened to draw the hardest neighborhood in L.A. But demons from Ben's complicated past catch up with him-and his tough, oddly principled Daryl Gates-era partner, Miguel Marquez-all too quickly. From the moment Ben and Marquez hit the streets together, they're pulled into a web of ultraviolent corruption and retribution involving hardcore Crip gangbangers and tagalong gangsta-rap gloryhounds, L.A.'s Mexican Mafia, sleazy celebrity defense attorneys, and dirty cops with distinctly self-serving definitions of law enforcement. Ben is forced to choose among father figures and apparent destinies-trying to obey (and discover) his own moral principles as well as his desperate animal instinct simply to stay alive.

Author Will Beall is a Los Angeles police officer who has spent almost all of his career on the streets of South Central, much of it in antigang units. The book bristles with the energy and authenticity of his experience. But the true revelation of L.A. Rex is that Will Beall can write - his raw and brilliant, fearless prose simultaneously evokes Richard Price and JamesEllroy.

The result is an explosive thriller that takes us deep into a city that's further from Hollywood than we can imagine-a city that no other writer has managed to capture with this kind of hard-earned insight and intensity. L.A. Rex is already on its way to the silver screen, and Beall is now at work on his next novel. Articulate cop and hard-nosed writer, Will Beall is perfectly poised to become the next great noir laureate of Los Angeles.