Ghettoside

Ghettoside

Investigating a Homicide Epidemic

Summary

THE MULTI-AWARD WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4

Why would you kill your neighbour?

Based on the best part of a decade embedded with the homicide units of the LAPD, this groundbreaking work of reportage takes us onto the streets, inside the homes and into the lives of a community wracked by a homicide epidemic.

Through the gripping story of one particular murder – of an eighteen-year-old boy named Bryant Tennelle, gunned down one evening in spring for no apparent reason – and of its investigation by a brilliant, ferociously driven detective – a blond, surfer-turned-cop named John Skaggs – it reveals the true origins of such violence, explodes the myths surrounding policing and race and shows that the only way to reverse the cycle of violence is with justice.

Reviews

  • Riveting … extraordinary … For long passages, it enveloped and transported me more completely than any other work of nonfiction I have ever read
    Ed Caesar, Sunday Times

About the author

Jill Leovy

Jill Leovy is an award-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Ghettoside was a Finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, winner of the Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Ridenhour Book Prize, the California Book Award Nonfiction Gold Medal, the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award for Non-fiction, the PEN USA Research Non-fiction Award, the Carla Furstenburg Cohen Literary Prize in Nonfiction, and was a nominee for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
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