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Book Review: L.A. Rex by Will Beall
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Soaked in blood and reeking with suspense "L.A. Rex" is set in South Central Los Angeles, and is about cops, crips, rappers, and "are the killers of El Eme's tax collectors carrying an oval badge?"
Will Beall is a cop in real life who worked in the most dangerous district in LA, the 77th. The craziest most violent shit happens there. Gang-bangin that's too fucked up for even the News stations to report on happens on a daily. Things like some shermed out kid eating his girlfriends face, or gangbangers dueling with uzis in broad daylight. If you're a cop in the 77th, and you don't have a huge pair of brass balls, you might as well be wearing a target on your back, it's true.
So who better to write a gritty page-turner about all the seediest elements of Los Angeles?
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The book is set in the late 90's during that ambiguous state of the LAPD after the '92 riots, and follows rookie cop Ben Halloran and his veteran hard-ass-mexican partner Miguel Marquez, as they do some good old fashioned police work amidst murderous crooked cops, notorious bloodthirsty gangsters, and Mexican Mafia's elite.
L.A. Rex holds no punches, kisses no one's ass, and gives you a sense of how damned crazy it is here in LA. The book made me cringe at times, it made my jaw drop a lot, but more than anything the book was irresistible. With so many twists and turns, the book dared you to put it down, laughing at you as you stayed up past your bed time just to try and squeeze in an extra chapter.
Grab a copy of "L.A. Rex" for yourself, and settle in for a heart racing journey.
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