Homicide Special (A Year with the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit)

With an Updated Epilogue by the Author

"A compelling portrait of seasoned homicide cops at work. This is L.A.'s darkest side: ironic, heart-breaking, stunningly violent, unfailingly human. Riveting."
-Jonathan Kellerman

The mandate for Los Angeles' unique police unit Homicide Special is to take on the toughest, most controversial, and highest-profile cases. In this "literate, unfailingly interesting work of true crime" (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed writer Miles Corwin uses unprecedented access to narrate six of the unit's cases-and capture its newest generation at work.

When a call girl from Kiev dies in the line of duty, detectives Chuck Knolls and Brian McCartin seek her killer among a circle of Russian women who have been sold into white slavery. When a gangster's daughter takes a bullet, veterans Jerry Stephens and Paul Coulter trace clues scattered across the country to a Manhattan real-estate magnate. A cold case is reopened; a mother-daughter drowning and a baffling rape/murder are solved. And, finally, Corwin re-creates the investigation surrounding the late Bonny Lee Blakley, allegedly murdered by her actor-husband, Robert Blake.

With a revised epilogue updating each of these fascinating cases, Homicide Special offers a riveting, behind-the-scenes look at one of the preeminent units of homicide detectives in the country.