Al Martinez is a columnist for the "Los Angeles Times", as well as a screenwriter and an author of books and national magazine articles. He shared a gold-medal Pulitzer Prize in Journalism in 1984 and was member of a staff that won Pulitzers in 1993 and 1995. He was honored two years ago by the Society of Professional Journalists as Journalist of the Year. He has also won two National Headliner Awards and a National Ernie Pyle Award. His work has been compared at various times both to that of Pyle and Mark Twain. "The Last City Room" is his first novel, he is currently at work on a second. His...