Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles

Standiford spins a yarn that is engaging and keeps the reader turning pages, and if one is looking for a breathless fan letter to Mulholland, this is it. While acknowledging Mulholland's greatest failure right off the bat (a dam failure that resulted in the deaths of more than 400 people), the author spends considerably more ink polishing Mulholland's legacy. Of course, that legacy includes the desertification of vast tracts of land, the creation of one of California's largest sources of air pollution, and a presidential decree that Los Angeles faucets are more entitled to Owens Valley water than is the Owens Valley, but these issues appear to pale - from the author's perspective - in comparison to Mulholland's civil engineering feat. Containing little to challenge the reader, less to embarrass the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District, and next to nothing to offend Mulholland or his heirs, 'Water To The Angels' comes across as a public relations piece. To paraphrase the "Chief" himself, 'There it is, take it - but with a grain of salt.'