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Fallen Angels: Chronicles of L.A. Crime and Mystery
Provides detailed accounts of more than sixty crimes, many involving Hollywood stars, with full facts as revealed in the police investigations, photographs, and unanswered questions about each case.
344 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1986
11 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Marvin J. Wolf
26 books17 followersThe son of a junkman and a mad housewife (really--she spent half her adult life in mental hospitals), Wolf served 13 years on active duty with the US Army, including a 15-month combat tour in Vietnam. He has worked as a dishwasher, an encyclopedia salesman, a camera store clerk and as a photojournalist with worldwide credits. In 1983, when he regained sole custody of his only child, he put aside his successful career in photojournalism to become an author. A Los Angeles Times bestselling author, Wolf has three times been recognized by the American Society of Journalists and Authors for his professionalism. In 2001, Wolf took a nine-year detour through the movie and television business, an education in writing fiction. One of his screenplays, "Ladies Night," was produced and aired on the USA Network. He returned to writing books and launched a career in fiction in 2010. He lives with his adult daughter in Asheville, NC.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 3, 2024
I did not know a lot of these stories. However, reading about the ones I did know a lot about felt like "the cliff notes." For that reason, I am not sure why they bothered to include things like the Manson murders. And in some cases, I felt like the facts here differed significantly from other accounts I had read of the same thing. Like how Mabel Normand was portrayed as a coke-fiend, which was why she was suspected in the William Desmond Taylor murders (Taylor tried to get her to clean up and her dealer did not take kindly to interference). I thought that theory had largely been discredited.
In a chapter added for this edition, the authors include a piece they wrote identifying Thelma Todd's killer. The crime, committed in 1935, was the object of one of Hollywood's biggest cover ups. The studios regularly cleaned up crime scenes to keep their stars out of the headlines.
All in all a fun read even if there is a lot of material here for further study by armchair crime junkies like me.
In a chapter added for this edition, the authors include a piece they wrote identifying Thelma Todd's killer. The crime, committed in 1935, was the object of one of Hollywood's biggest cover ups. The studios regularly cleaned up crime scenes to keep their stars out of the headlines.
All in all a fun read even if there is a lot of material here for further study by armchair crime junkies like me.
December 4, 2023
"Fallen Angels" is a collection of famous crimes committed in the Los Angeles area from the late 1800s to the 1980s. Each crime is described in a few pages and the authors even provide directions on how to visit the various scenes of the crimes. To top it off, they reveal the true killer of actress Thelma Todd, a previously unsolved murder from 1935. It is basically a history of LA through the lens of criminal activity.
November 28, 2017
Fallen Angels by Marvin J. Wolf and Katherine Mader is described in its subtitle as a chronicle of L.A. (Los Angeles) crime and mystery. Yep, I know that “everybody” knows L.A. stands for Los Angeles but there are those unfamiliar with the United States that might think L.A. is a genre of crime and mystery that involves the use of leather articles (LA) so I wanted to clear that up. This novel fulfills the requirements of a chronicle as it presents true crime accounts from 1847 to 1983. There is a fascinating addendum at the end dated 1987 which provides updates to the earlier reported Thelma Todd mystery. This is crime reporting with many irrefutable facts referenced in an approximately 11-page bibliography. Some may argue this is not a novel due to the reporting of so much factual information. But there are also a lot of unsolved mysteries and possibilities presented. The idea that studios staged crime scenes to protect contract actors may have a basis in truth. The reader will probably question why there was so much time between a death and the report of the death to the police. Because of conjectures, no one knew what really went on in the “missing time” sequences, I call this work a novel.
I love crime fiction. Better than that are accounts of actual crimes and the clever stratagems that criminals employ to avoid detection. This work provides a review of some of the most famous cases and filled in blanks where my knowledge was incomplete. As a young person in the 50s, my parents and grandparents talked about the scandal that was Fatty Arbuckle. They didn’t talk of specifics to the five-year-old I then was but later, as with this work, details were filled in. The recent demise and publicity surrounding Charles Manson prompted my son to ask me what the big deal was. This work provides publicly available accounts and attempts to find threads that bundle disparate accounts into a “story” that we can read as if it were entertaining fiction.
The work serves a more valuable function for me as it suggests areas for further study. I would never have thought of putting Clarence Darrow and bribes in the same sentence. I’m not quite sure whether I believe in the origins of “the real McCoy,” but the story presented here is entertaining. Readers get a look at the Black Dahlia and information that brings back “The Godfather” in accounts of Bugsy Siegel. Sal Mineo, Patty Hearst, and John Belushi return to mind though the chapter prompts in this work.
My only negative comment goes to proofreading. Not editing, proofreading. It seems to me that from about three-fourths of the book to the end the number of sentence fragments and typos increased. They irritated me enough to highlight them. I have found instances when it was not entirely a fault of the author but had something to do with the format in which I was reading. In one case I withdrew a review when an author pointed out to me what had happened (I had downloaded a work that was later corrected). These obstacles to the flow of reading stopped me from giving the work five stars but the overall reading experience remains enjoyable.
I love crime fiction. Better than that are accounts of actual crimes and the clever stratagems that criminals employ to avoid detection. This work provides a review of some of the most famous cases and filled in blanks where my knowledge was incomplete. As a young person in the 50s, my parents and grandparents talked about the scandal that was Fatty Arbuckle. They didn’t talk of specifics to the five-year-old I then was but later, as with this work, details were filled in. The recent demise and publicity surrounding Charles Manson prompted my son to ask me what the big deal was. This work provides publicly available accounts and attempts to find threads that bundle disparate accounts into a “story” that we can read as if it were entertaining fiction.
The work serves a more valuable function for me as it suggests areas for further study. I would never have thought of putting Clarence Darrow and bribes in the same sentence. I’m not quite sure whether I believe in the origins of “the real McCoy,” but the story presented here is entertaining. Readers get a look at the Black Dahlia and information that brings back “The Godfather” in accounts of Bugsy Siegel. Sal Mineo, Patty Hearst, and John Belushi return to mind though the chapter prompts in this work.
My only negative comment goes to proofreading. Not editing, proofreading. It seems to me that from about three-fourths of the book to the end the number of sentence fragments and typos increased. They irritated me enough to highlight them. I have found instances when it was not entirely a fault of the author but had something to do with the format in which I was reading. In one case I withdrew a review when an author pointed out to me what had happened (I had downloaded a work that was later corrected). These obstacles to the flow of reading stopped me from giving the work five stars but the overall reading experience remains enjoyable.
October 13, 2020
Interesting cases throughout the book. I'm familiar with a dozen or so or have heard of them. The new to me cases were mostly murder but a few others mixed in.
The case that I am most familiar with is of course the Manson family. Unfortunately, the chapter about the case is pretty much 100% inaccurate but that's not a shock.
The book is from 1986 so I'm sure many of the addresses included are long gone or set up as something else.
The case that I am most familiar with is of course the Manson family. Unfortunately, the chapter about the case is pretty much 100% inaccurate but that's not a shock.
The book is from 1986 so I'm sure many of the addresses included are long gone or set up as something else.
April 26, 2019
I owned Fallen Angels for many years and frequently dipped into it. Then, a decade ago, I got divorced and the ex-wife ended up with this book. Sad! I had to buy another copy from Amazon, that's how much I love the book. It's not just the lurid stories, but Wolf's prose is engaging and crisp.
July 24, 2018
This non-fiction retelling of some historic LA crimes was roughly written but highly interesting to me.
March 13, 2017
Quick recaps of some infamous L.A. crimes and trials written in a kind of jazzy, tabloid style. There were a few in here I hadn't heard of before, including one that took place right down the street. Bonus: Thomas Guide page numbers and directions to the sites. Thomas Guides!
December 17, 2022
4.0-star. Lots of annoying typos in this book that needing better proofreading, but what a great wealth of real-life crime in Los Angeles. I stumbled into this book as I was reading Earl Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Lame Canary. I wondered what was behind Perry Mason’s statement on page 81 that L.A. autopsy surgeons no longer fixed a narrow time of death lately...”due to The Thelma Todd Case and the Rattlesnake Case.” Those turned out to actually real-life (not Perry Mason) cases, originally ruled accidental deaths by the forensic surgeons, then later realized to be murders.
Authors Wolf and Mader report on some very interesting, novel, and even precedent-making criminal cases occurring in L.A. And connect the film industry’s ties to corrupted politicians, civil servant, and the police (whose protecting actors’ misdeeds from public scrutiny turned out to be win-win among the powerful). Add to the mix that emerging L.A. was attractive to gangsters, of which one enterprise was a string of offshore “legal” floating casinos (a precursor to the casino haven in Las Vegas run by the mob, as well as the Agua Caliente casino run just across the Mexican border owned by Hollywood moguls and a recluse for actors and L.A. elite).
While the authors obviously had to do a lot of research, their retelling isn’t full of fluff and is to-the-point and results in 39 cases covered within 426 pages. My earlier research prompted by my page 81 finding in the Perry Mason novel lead to a retelling of The Rattlesnake murder in an article by Hadley Meares. That very Rattlesnake murder case was also retold in Fallen Angels, and I will say the Wolf-Mader and Meares retellings are quite independent and each are enlightening. But the point I’d like to made here is that Wolf-Mader cursory writing style might have been a tad bit too sparse, evidenced by it leaving out Meares’ laugh-out-loud finding and notable fact that one of the two rattlesnakes named Lethal and Lightening escaped during the criminal trial evidentiary proceeding and caused hysterics among the courtroom gallery.
Earl Stanley Gardner, himself, is cited as a consultant on one of the 39 LA real-crime cases in Fallen Angels. Moreover, it seems like Earl Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Lame Canary, itself, is a variant of one of Fallen Angels’ real-life insurance fraud cases.
A book well worth reading for fans of true crime and mysteries, as well as an insightful source in understanding Los Angeles’ culture and cocktail for its corruption.
Authors Wolf and Mader report on some very interesting, novel, and even precedent-making criminal cases occurring in L.A. And connect the film industry’s ties to corrupted politicians, civil servant, and the police (whose protecting actors’ misdeeds from public scrutiny turned out to be win-win among the powerful). Add to the mix that emerging L.A. was attractive to gangsters, of which one enterprise was a string of offshore “legal” floating casinos (a precursor to the casino haven in Las Vegas run by the mob, as well as the Agua Caliente casino run just across the Mexican border owned by Hollywood moguls and a recluse for actors and L.A. elite).
While the authors obviously had to do a lot of research, their retelling isn’t full of fluff and is to-the-point and results in 39 cases covered within 426 pages. My earlier research prompted by my page 81 finding in the Perry Mason novel lead to a retelling of The Rattlesnake murder in an article by Hadley Meares. That very Rattlesnake murder case was also retold in Fallen Angels, and I will say the Wolf-Mader and Meares retellings are quite independent and each are enlightening. But the point I’d like to made here is that Wolf-Mader cursory writing style might have been a tad bit too sparse, evidenced by it leaving out Meares’ laugh-out-loud finding and notable fact that one of the two rattlesnakes named Lethal and Lightening escaped during the criminal trial evidentiary proceeding and caused hysterics among the courtroom gallery.
Earl Stanley Gardner, himself, is cited as a consultant on one of the 39 LA real-crime cases in Fallen Angels. Moreover, it seems like Earl Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Lame Canary, itself, is a variant of one of Fallen Angels’ real-life insurance fraud cases.
A book well worth reading for fans of true crime and mysteries, as well as an insightful source in understanding Los Angeles’ culture and cocktail for its corruption.
June 28, 2017
A nice true crime compendium. Each short telling concludes with one or more map locations in case you want to make a grisly road trip.
The tales are chronological from a failed burglary caper that was the State of California's first crime in 1847 to the 1983 murder of Vicki Morgan; prostitute and dominatrix to business and political elite circling around the Ronald Reagan "kitchen cabinet".
Other high points include Walburga Oesterreich's bizarre 10-year affair with attic-dwelling Otto Sanhuber in her own homes plural. Then there is the downfall and Detroit suicide of boxed Kid McCoy who these authors are convinced gave birth to the phrase "The Real McCoy". In researching the murder of Marion Parker, the authors uncover a ghost story, so that is cool. Women are perpetrators here, too, like "Tiger Woman" Clara Phillips. Also standing out is the sad and pointless death of Carl Switzer, known for appearing in the Our Gang short subjects series as Alfalfa.
The tales are chronological from a failed burglary caper that was the State of California's first crime in 1847 to the 1983 murder of Vicki Morgan; prostitute and dominatrix to business and political elite circling around the Ronald Reagan "kitchen cabinet".
Other high points include Walburga Oesterreich's bizarre 10-year affair with attic-dwelling Otto Sanhuber in her own homes plural. Then there is the downfall and Detroit suicide of boxed Kid McCoy who these authors are convinced gave birth to the phrase "The Real McCoy". In researching the murder of Marion Parker, the authors uncover a ghost story, so that is cool. Women are perpetrators here, too, like "Tiger Woman" Clara Phillips. Also standing out is the sad and pointless death of Carl Switzer, known for appearing in the Our Gang short subjects series as Alfalfa.
November 25, 2012
This for Los Angeles history buffs--like me. Stories from the 19th century, through the gangsters and movie stars of the 20th, and even into the awful serial killers beyond.
These crime descriptions are quick to read ("Just the facts, ma'am") but what I love best is the locations at the end of the story. The homes of the criminals and victims and the sites of the crimes--if the places still exist--are spelled out so that you can drive by the places.
Thelma Todd's Cafe? Tiberico Vasquez' hideouts? Right there waitin' for you.
Wolf and Mader wrote this book in the 1980s, but Wolf has updated it. My only complaint--which marks me as a history geek, I know--is that there are no footnotes or sources.
I actually dropped Mr. Wolf an email about one story that I disagreed with and asked him what his sources were. He wrote me back a nice note and told me. His source was Hal Roach, whom he interviewed in the director was in his 90s. Sources don't get much better than that, at least for Hollywood crimes.
These crime descriptions are quick to read ("Just the facts, ma'am") but what I love best is the locations at the end of the story. The homes of the criminals and victims and the sites of the crimes--if the places still exist--are spelled out so that you can drive by the places.
Thelma Todd's Cafe? Tiberico Vasquez' hideouts? Right there waitin' for you.
Wolf and Mader wrote this book in the 1980s, but Wolf has updated it. My only complaint--which marks me as a history geek, I know--is that there are no footnotes or sources.
I actually dropped Mr. Wolf an email about one story that I disagreed with and asked him what his sources were. He wrote me back a nice note and told me. His source was Hal Roach, whom he interviewed in the director was in his 90s. Sources don't get much better than that, at least for Hollywood crimes.
January 15, 2016
This book didn't really send me. All kinds of stories about crime and criminals in and around Los Angeles, starting back before the city properly existed.
March 31, 2017
Interesting stories and a quick read
I like the book. Some of these murders are well known, but the book contained details that made each story interesting.
I like the book. Some of these murders are well known, but the book contained details that made each story interesting.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews