The Bizarre, Freakish, and Just Curious Ways People Die in the Golden State.

By David Kulczyk.

This book's aim is to encompass shocking murders and accidents that at the time shook the very soul of Californians, but eventually and gratefully faded from memory. California has always been a destination for people with dreams of fame and fortune. Anything is possible in California, and when anything is possible, death always lurks nearby. "Death in California" is an historic manuscript detailing the more arcane ways people have died in the Golden State.

The thirty-one vignettes in "Death in California" range from a description of being one of the fourteen different tourists to be swept to their deaths over Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park, to singer Bob "Bear" Hite of the blues/boogie band Canned Heat overdosing on heroin in a seedy Hollywood nightclub. The book's diverse set of deaths include a tale of torture and murder by a chicken farmer in the desert in 1926, as well as the tragedy of a 10- ton jet airplane crashing into a Bay Area apartment kitchen in 1973. The litany of freakish and bizarre deaths in California also include hangings, gun accidents, crashes and suicide. Social status is no barrier: both the famous and obscure are profiled.