The Long Winding Road of Harry Raymond

Book excerpt: Raymond is remembered by historians today for surviving a bomb placed in his automobile by a secret squad of the Los Angeles Police Department. After the bombing, newspapers across the country ran photographs showing him stalwartly smoking a cigarette while doctors removed shrapnel from his legs. This brazen attempt on his life would transform Los Angeles, leading to the recall of the mayor, the termination of many Los Angeles Police Department leaders, and the imprisonment of members of a secret LAPD police squad. The assassination attempt would also fuel the growth of Las Vegas, to where many LA underworld figures migrated afterward.For some, Harry Raymond would go down in Los Angeles history as a modern knight in the story of the city's corrupt days, a real-life Philip Marlowe. Others, looking back at his previous career, regarded him as the kind of cop Marlowe hated: brutal and unscrupulous. Although Raymond often worked for the LAPD as a special investigator, he also associated with leading underworld figures of the twenties and thirties. Although it was never clear which side he was on, there was no doubt that he knew a lot about what was wrong with Los Angeles and almost paid the ultimate price for his knowledge.While my book focuses mainly on Raymond's career, its backdrop is LA's growth in the first decades of the twentieth century. It not only tells Raymond's story for the first time but also recounts the history of LA's criminal underworld in the pre-War era. It should appeal both to the general public and scholars interested in the history of Los Angeles in the first part of the twentieth century.