The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers each year.

Charged with misconduct in a high-profile solicitation of murder case, Scully is forced to resign from the LAPD or face criminal prosecution. His wife Alexa leaves him, seeking a divorce for his alleged dalliance with the accused in the case, a well-known Hollywood actress. His son, Chooch, horrified by these events, won't speak to him.

Meet Chick Best - a middle-aged, self-absorbed, disaffected, California dot.com millionaire with a trophy wife. Though concerned about his life and family, Chick resigns himself to a miserable state of acceptance, until he experiences unrequited love at first sight - which leads to deadly consequences.

Truit Hickman is a small-time crook doing life in California's notoriously brutal Corcoran State Prison for the murder of his mother. He admitted to the crime, but now Hickman claims his confession was coerced by the cops. A beautiful Internal Affairs detective, Secada "Scout" Llevar, asks Shane Scully to help investigate.

L.A. police detective Shane Scully comes under investigation by Internal Affairs (derisively known as "the tin collectors") after he kills his ex-partner who was one of the mayor's bodyguards. Temporarily reassigned, so that he can remain under the department's watchful eye, Scully finds that more than his badge is at stake when he is set up to take the rap in a deadly plot of corruption and conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the LAPD.

Leaving L.A.'s Parker Center, Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, agree to meet at home in one hour. Shane gets there; Alexa doesn't. In the middle of the night, he's called to a crime scene on Mulholland Drive: The African-American victim, who appears to be a Crip gangbanger, has been executed gangland style. Shockingly, the body is in Alexa's car and her gun is found nearby. But Alexa is missing.

Leaving L.A.'s Parker Center, Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, agree to meet at home in one hour. Shane gets there; Alexa doesn't. In the middle of the night, he's called to a crime scene on Mulholland Drive: The African-American victim, who appears to be a Crip gangbanger, has been executed gangland style. Shockingly, the body is in Alexa's car and her gun is found nearby. But Alexa is missing.

Driving along the freeway, LAPD Sergeant Shane Scully glances over and sees at the wheel of a neighboring car his oldest friend and LAPD colleague, Jody Dean. Why is Scully so surprised? Because it's been two years since Jody committed suicide. Now Shane is confronted by the bizarre truth: Jody and five other cops thought to be dead are anything but.

Shane Scully and his partner are assigned to the case of "the Fingertip Killer", a serial murderer preying on homeless veterans in Los Angeles. Every two weeks he strikes: he beats his victims, then shoots them in the back of the head. Once they're dead, he cuts off their fingertips, closes their eyes, and tosses them in the river.

Shane Scully and his partner are assigned to the case of "the Fingertip Killer", a serial murderer preying on homeless veterans in Los Angeles. Every two weeks he strikes: he beats his victims, then shoots them in the back of the head. Once they're dead, he cuts off their fingertips, closes their eyes, and tosses them in the river.