res images of glamour, wealth, and success; in reality, the place has more than its share of malice, mayhem and, yes, even murder. In the breathtaking, and sometimes-macabre pages of Beverly Hills Confidential, the underbelly of the tummy-tucked gets exposed. Straight from the files of the Beverly Hills Police Department come the scoops the media often missed, and many never-before-published images enhance the blood-curdling accounts. Meet a Hollywood wannabe--at least she's finally a cover girl, now--sprawled on a gurney, but what's that mysterious message carved on her back? See Bugsy Siegel's gruesome stare, his eyeballs shot out of their sockets; and a dead macaw in its ornate cage, its silence the clue that led investigators to the mummified remains of a talk-radio icon's mother.

In Beverly Hills Confidential, investigative reporter Barbara Schroeder and BHPD CSI inspector Clark Fogg reexamine the sensational and never-to-be-forgotten stories of the past century, such as the Charlie Chaplin paternity trial, and the mystery surrounding the death (was it murder?) of Jean Harlow's M-G-M mogul husband. Revisit the most horrific crimes: the heinous Menendez murders; the ill-fated Van Cleef & Arpels heist; the much-publicized shooting of high-powered publicist Ronni Chasen. Beverly Hills Confidential shows how greed, jealousy, passion, corruption, and sometimes just simple bad luck, turned the once-idyllic movie star sanctuary into a haven for headlines.

From a murder-suicide at Greystone Mansion in the Twenties--was it a gay love affair or a political payback?--to a fashion designer-turned covert molester who catered to the contemporary Who's Who of 90210. Then there's the nude female police aviatrix falling from the sky, and a millionaire madam running a stable of beautiful women and selling sought-after drugs--the BHPD has seen it all. Now, for the first time ever, the renowned department has opened its files to share the captivating chronicle of a city and its crime stories.