Les Standiford (Bringing Adam Home) honed his chops on his Miami-set John Deal crime novels, and this work of narrative nonfiction ups the ante on his already storied career. Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct and the Rise of Los Angeles is a history of the water wars between Los Angeles and the Owens Valley, but more specifically, it's an ode to William Mulholland. Considered the father of Los Angeles, this towering, no-nonsense Irishman, the superintendent of the Los Angeles City Water Company, turned an arid desert basin into a starry metropolis of 10 million people in an architectural achievement that endures to this day.
Standiford lays bare the struggles Mulholland faced in taming the abundant Owens River, knowing that in benefiting "the greatest good" he would strip away the livelihoods of Owens Valley residents who depended on that water for their own development and prosperity. The only blemish in Mulholland's complicated yet pragmatic career was the collapse of the St. Francis Dam in 1928, which killed 600 and haunted him until his death.
Los Angeles faces the same do-or-die situation today that provoked Mulholland at the turn of the 20th century to brave a buckboard journey in desperate search of a resource needed for the city's survival. "Still, anyone tempted to doubt any Mulholland anecdote should keep in mind the indisputable facts of the man's legacy, which still keep a major city afloat, and which to this day provoke legislative debate, lawsuits and acts of criminal mischief." --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant