First

<h4>Former federal prosecutor Jonathan Shapiro’s first novel, Deadly Force, was recently released. He is the co-creator and executive producer of the Amazon Prime series Goliath, and the author of Lawyers, Liars and the Art of Storytelling.</h4>

Jonathan Shapiro

First and Not Last

“The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.” — Aristotle

"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." — Molly Ivins

Politics

"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." — Samuel Goldwyn

Biography &amp; Autobiography

"As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag." — Patti Smith

Gender &amp; Sexuality

Mary Astor’s Purple Diary

Skip the Words, Read the Pictures

"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers

Film

"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." — Frank Zappa

Art &amp; Architecture

Dirty Words and Filthy Pictures: Film and the First Amendment

American Smut: Free Speech and the Right to Make a Buck

Los Angeles. December, 1941. America stands at the brink of World War II. War fever and racial hatred grip the city.
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The hellish murder of a Japanese family summons three men and one woman. LAPD captain William H. Parker is superbly gifted, corrosively ambitious, liquored-up, and consumed by dubious ideology. He is bitterly at odds with Sergeant Dudley Smith—Irish émigré, ex-IRA killer, fledgling war profiteer. Hideo Ashida is a police chemist and the only Japanese on the L.A. cop payroll. Kay Lake is a twenty-one-year-old dilettante looking for adventure. The investigation throws them together and rips them apart. The crime becomes a political storm center that brilliantly illuminates these four driven souls—comrades, rivals, lovers, history’s pawns.
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Here, Ellroy gives us the party at the edge of the abyss and the precipice of America’s ascendance.&nbsp;Perfidia&nbsp;is that moment, spellbindingly captured.

Perfidia

A Healthy Serving of Ellroy

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

Fiction

"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter, eh?" — Dashiell Hammett

Noir

Creatocracy

Fabulous!

"Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors." — Simone Weil

Cultural Studies

The Case Against the Supreme Court

Guilty as Charged

The Roberts Court

Words Matter: Marcia Coyle's "The Roberts Court"

The Oath

Toobin's Pivot: Jeffrey Toobin's "The Oath"

Former federal prosecutor Jonathan Shapiro’s first novel, Deadly Force, was recently released. He is the co-creator and executive producer of the Amazon Prime series Goliath, and the author of Lawyers, Liars and the Art of Storytelling.

Jonathan Shapiro

Articles