After reading the stories, “The Kidnapper Bell” and “City of Commerce” in the collection Los Angeles Noir, I came to the conclusion that the authors did a very good job at describing and using the Los Angeles landscape. Growing up in Los Angeles, I could see the L.A. River in my head, clear as day. Kidnapper Bell written by Jim Pascoe gave detailed description that made it easy to imagine being there at that moment. The “knee-high barrier of loose chain-link tops” (pg.212) and the “graffiti on the drain covers” (pg.220). However Neal Pollack’s City of Commerce does a better job in making you feel and visualize parts of Los Angeles. How easily “on an ordinary day, an overturned tractor-trailer can destroy your plans in L.A.” (pg.240). Pollack’s also describes the change in landscape as he heads South on the I-5. “The landscape grew generic, sooty, industrial…” (pg.231). Pollack also describes how the leather-bound nightclubs and fancy Valley gallerias change to the outlet malls and truck-stop Arby’s as he travels down the I-5 to the City of Commerce. Overall I get the sense that the authors know not only the brightness, shining lights of L.A. but the dark side as well, of what goes on when the lights are off.