Book review: All Involved

THE 1992 LA riots provide the backdrop to All Involved, Ryan Gattis’ fifth novel.

When the police officers who were filmed beating Rodney King were acquitted on April 29, parts of the city exploded into an orgy of violence, looting, arson and murder that lasted for five days.

The logical conclusion, then, was that the anarchy was a nihilistic response to an oppressive, racist culture, but Ryan Gattis offers an alternative reading. The arson, believes fireman Anthony Smiljanic, is ‘mostly planned and it’s one of three things — grudge, mayhem or insurance.’ The riots, argues Gattis in a preface titled ‘The Facts’, provided ‘a sinister combination of opportunity and circumstance,’ and the five days of rioting, during which 60 people died, ‘was a long time for scores to be settled.’