Description

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"Read this man's book." --James Ellroy
A harrowing, edge-of-your-seat narrative of murder and secrets, revenge and heroism in the City of Angels—the real events behind the blockbuster Warner Brothers film starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

GANGSTER SQUAD chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O'Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick. About all they had in common was their obsession. So O'Mara set a trap to prove Mickey was a killer. And Wooters formed an alliance with Mickey's budding rival, Jack "The Enforcer" Whalen. Two cops -- two hoodlums. Their fates collided in the closing days of the 1950s, when late one night "The Enforcer" confronted Mickey and his crew. The aftermath would shake both LA's mob and police department, and signal the end of a defining era in the city's history.

Warner Brothers developed the film Gangster Squad based on the research award-winning journalist Paul Lieberman conducted for this book, which reveals the unbelievable true stories behind the film. He spent more than a decade tracking down and interviewing surviving members of the real police unit as well as families and associates of the mobsters they pursued. Gangster Squad is a tour-de-force narrative reminiscent of LA Confidential.

About the Author

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PAUL LIEBERMAN is a journalist with more than twenty-four years of experience at the Los Angeles Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  He has won dozens of journalism honors, most for investigative projects, including: the Robert F. Kennedy Awards Grand Prize, George Polk Award, Gerald Loeb Award, American Society of Newspaper Editors Award, and Scripps Howard Foundation Award. He also shared in two Pulitzer Prizes at the Los Angeles Times.  A native New Yorker, Lieberman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Williams College and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, where he studied law and social history. He is the author of Gangster Squad. He lives in Westchester County with his wife.

Praise For…

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“Read this man's book.” —James Ellroy

“Classic Noir, a chilling tale from the era that still defines L.A.” —Huffington Post

“I'm all in on this book. Got a little Mission Impossible in there. Got a little Dirty Dozen in there. Got a little Bud White from L.A. Confidential in there. All set on the mean Noir streets of L.A. I dig the circa. I did the milieu. And I dig the cast of characters.” —Dennis Miller

“If you're a fan of true crime, you will love it. Lieberman really gives us the sense that we've stepped back in time…. This is a two-fisted true story, tough and hard-edged, as exciting as any novel.” —Winnepeg Free Press

“A real-life version of L.A. Confidential.” —Joe Scarborough of "Morning Joe"