Kiss Me Deadly, Bonnie & Clyde, Get Carter, Little Caesar, Goodfellas - behind each of these classic films there's a little-known story waiting to be told, and pulp novels, real-life bank robbers and twisted serial killers have all played a part in shaping the high-points of crime cinema. After Hollywood had cheerfully thrown these elements into the mincer the finished film sometimes owed little except a title to its source material.

Real life crimes were often considered by film-makers to be too brutal - and their perpetrators too ugly - for the delicate sensibilites of cinema audiences. Thanks to Hollywood, runty little failed bank-robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are forever fixed in the popular imagination as a handsome young couple with toothpaste grins and an upbeat bluegrass soundtrack, and hell, those bullets don't really hurt so much in slow motion.

The films themselves may be well known, but their origins are often far less familiar. This book provides a chance to compare the sources with the finished films, placing them in the context of the times in which they were made and the studio system that produced them. From The Big Sleep to Point Blank, and from The Godfather to LA Confidential, Hardboiled Hollywood takes you behind the scenes at the scene of the crime. It's an offer you can't refuse.