"A vivid account of the creation of modern Los Angeles, a city born from the fantasies of strong-willed visionaries, from bestselling author and masterful storyteller Gary Krist. Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California was sleepy semi-desert farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world's largest and most iconic cities emerged. At the heart of the seemingly impossible, meteoric rise of Los Angeles were the visions of three...

"From bestselling author Gary Krist, a vibrant and immersive account of New Orleans' other civil war, at a time when commercialized vice, jazz culture, and endemic crime defined the battlegrounds of the Crescent City. Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' thirty-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite 'better half' against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century...