"I have killed no man in the first place that didn"t deserve killing . . . I had no alternative. It was either my life or their life."-Mickey Cohen A marvelously detailed biography of the mobster who controlled Los Angeles for the Mafia, from Bugsy Siegel to Carlo Gambino and the John F. Kennedy assassination. Mickey Cohen was above all a master blackmailer of stars, and they all are on parade within these pages: from Marilyn Monroe to Lana Turner and Dean Martin to Sammy Davis Jr. A vast portrait of America and organized crime from the 1940s to the 1970s seen through the life of Mickey Cohen.