'North Mission Road'

That's the title of Court TV's new show based on access to the files of the Los Angeles County Coroner's morgue, located at 1104 N. Mission Road. I haven't watched the show, but a few blog entries I've seen liked it. (Here's a post I wrote last year about a visit to the morgue "service floor," as they call it.) The Mission Road offices are also the home of Skeletons in the Closet, the gift shop with a sense of humor ("for those of us of dubious distinctive taste") that sells morgue "souvenirs" and merchandise with the Los Angeles Department of Coroner brand around the world. I wrote about the shop last year for Smithsonian.

Somewhat related: Scene of the Crime by Tim B. Wride is a new book of previously unreleased murder scene photos from the files of the LAPD. Forewords are by James Ellroy and chief William Bratton. Publishers Weekly calls it "gorgeously lurid," and you do need the stomach to look at dozens of dead bodies. I was at a meeting yesterday where it got passed around, and everyone agreed that even though it is a well done $35 coffee table book, none of us would actually display it on our tables. It has a good Amazon sales rank right now of 2,210 though.


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