Forthcoming: November 7, 2024
979-8-89013-007-5 (hardcover) / $29.95
979-8-89013-009-9 (e-book) / $15.95
979-8-89013-010-5 (audiobook) / $15.95
324 pages
A gripping true-crime biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi—the controversial “Coroner to the Stars,” who performed the autopsies of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, and Natalie Wood. This book blends Hollywood celebrity and death, Asian American history, and Los Angeles and California history in a feat of exquisite storytelling.
L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood is the first biography ever of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner of the County of Los Angeles from 1967 to 1982. Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Noguchi conducted the official autopsies of some of the most high-profile personalities of his time, including Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Sharon Tate, 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. Noguchi was the inspiration for the popular 1970s/80s television drama Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman.
Featuring never-before-published details about Noguchi’s most controversial cases, L.A. Coroner is a mesmerizing, meticulously researched true crime biography, set against the backdrop of the racial politics of the 1960s and 1970s and Hollywood celebrity culture.
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About the author
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Anne is a historian and professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her essay on Noguchi, on which this book is based, won the 2021 prize for best essay from the Historical Society of Southern California. Choi has previously served on the faculty of Swarthmore College and the University of Kansas and is an Andrew Mellon Fellow and an American Council of Learned Societies Digital Ethnic Studies Fellow. She lives in Los Angeles with her family and is of Korean-American descent.