L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood

"L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood is the first-ever biography of Dr. Tsunetomi "Thomas" Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner of the County of Los Angeles from 1967 to 1982. Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Noguchi conducted autopsies on some of the most high-profile and controversial figures in American history, including Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate and other victims of the Manson Family, Janis Joplin, John Belushi, and Natalie Wood. His elaborate press conferences, which often generated more controversy than they did answers, catapulted him into the public eye and made him a celebrity in his own right. He was the inspiration for the popular television drama Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman, and penned the bestselling 1983 book Coroner. Anne Soon Choi, a scholar specializing in Asian American Studies and Los Angeles history, delivers in L.A. Coroner a compelling, meticulously researched blend of true crime, cultural history, and biography, set against the backdrop of the "Golden Age" of Hollywood, the racial politics of the 1960s and 1970s, and celebrity culture"--