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In this long but fascinating book, Geoffrey Cowan tells the engrossing story of Clarence Darrow's activities in Los Angeles in 1911 and 1912. These activities centered around two sensational legal battles. In the first, the McNamara case, two labor activist brothers, James and John J., were charged with bombing the building of the notoriously anti-union Los Angeles Times, killing twenty workers. Darrow, the chief defense attorney, loudly trumpeted his clients' innocence (while knowing they were "guilty as hell") and raised thousands of dollars from poor workers for a defense fund. He then pleaded the brothers guilty, causing many in the labor movement to regard him as a scoundrel and a traitor. In the second case, Darrow was himself the defendant, charged with bribing one of the jurors in the McNamara case. After a...