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Black Tunnel White Magic

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What to expect

Detective Rick Jackson, a decorated LAPD detective and a key inspiration in the development of Harry Bosch, delivers a shocking and immersive look into the one case he could never let go.

In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. Yet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck?

Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King.

In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Rick Jackson, the now-retired police detective who helped inspire Michael Connelly’s beloved Harry Bosch, along with co-writer, Matthew McGough, take us through the events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic is the true story of a murder in cold blood, deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set forth by the only man who could tell it.

Critics Review

"A great true-crime story and a great cop memoir—about how they do it and, above all, why they do it."—Lee Child
"This is a book that is surely about killers but they don’t take the spotlight. That belongs to the detectives who work the case, whose eyes are not jaundiced and who steadily, methodically close in. In them you find humanity and hope in a city where killers are often kings."—Michael Connelly

"In the crowded field of true crime this book stands out. Skilled journalist Matthew McGough teams up with legendary LAPD homicide Detective Rick Jackson to create a page-turning narrative. Jackson investigated this compelling case and provides the kind of insight and inside-knowledge that could only come from a detective who was there for every twist and turn of the case. Black Tunnel White Magic is a terrific read!"

—Miles Corwin
"A standout among true crime tales for its heart and humanity, Black Tunnel White Magic offers rare insight into a detective's process—and the long-game costs of working a murder case with investment and empathy. Not for nothing is Rick Jackson among the inspirations for the fictional Harry Bosch. Riveting and thoughtful, this is LA crime writing at its finest."—Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author of An Honest Man
“Rick Jackson brings a decorated LAPD detective’s unique eye, voice, and life to the true crime space with this gripping account of a murder investigation he wouldn’t let go. He and Matthew McGough transport the reader to 1990’s Los Angeles for a behind the scenes view of a detective’s world. Black Tunnel White Magic is a terrific read.”—Alafair Burke, New York Times bestselling author of The Note

"There's always one case that haunts homicide detectives and never goes away . . . Rick Jackson re-creates the case that still keeps him awake at night -- and then detail by painstaking detail not only immerses the reader in an investigation that finds justice for a murdered college student, but also shows how getting haunted and staying haunted is what turns down-and-dirty police work into a transcendent moral cause.  We all hope that the moral arc of the universe really does bend towards justice.  In Black Tunnel, White Magic, we come face-to-face with the kind of elbow grease and obsession necessary to make that happen."

—Tom Junod, senior writer, ESPN
Author Matthew McGough
Narrator Jim Meskimen, Michael Connelly
Duration 17 hours and 18 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781668644737
Format Audiobook
Publisher Hachette Audio
Genre Forensic science, True crime, True crime: serial killers and murderers
Availability US

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