L.A. Coroner

Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood

By: Anne Soon Choi

“Choi's true-crime biography adds much-needed detail and perspective to Noguchi's unusual and compelling story.”—Booklist

L.A. Coroner is a gripping true crime biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the controversial “Coroner to the Stars,” who performed the autopsies of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Natalie Wood, and hundreds of other notable personalities. Choi, an award-winning historian and professor, deftly blends Los Angeles history, death investigation and forensic science, and Asian American history in a feat of exquisite storytelling.

L.A. Coroner is the first-ever biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner of Los Angeles County from 1967 to 1982. Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Noguchi conducted the official autopsies of some of the most high-profile figures of his time. His elaborate press conferences, which often generated more controversy than they did answers, catapulted him into the public eye.

Noguchi was also the inspiration for the popular 1970s-80s television drama Quincy, M.E., starring Jack Klugman. Featuring never-before-published details about Noguchi’s most controversial cases, L.A. Coroner is a meticulously researched biography of a complex man, set against the backdrop of the social and racial politics of the 1960s and 1970s and Hollywood celebrity culture.

©2025 Anne Soon Choi (P)2025 Third State Books

Critic reviews

“Delving into details about these high-profile cases, Choi blends Asian American and Los Angeles history with Hollywood true crime.”—Library Journal

“The author's portrait of Noguchi is satisfyingly complex: she acknowledges his skill and pushes back against certain accusations of negligence, but doesn't shy away from his notorious headline-chasing. At once a lurid collection of true crime stories and an edifying glimpse at midcentury California, this fascinates.”—Publishers Weekly