In The Trouble with Palm Trees Iris Berry takes you on a tour of Los Angeles that’ll haunt you like one of the City’s famous unsolved murders. Her writing is gritty and scarred, but loaded with details, and an ironic, wry sense of humor. Whether she’s paying tribute to a deceased cat, or describing the suicidal tendencies of a gangster x-boyfriend, there is always a connecting thread-survivors’ wisdom and a sense of universal hope. Pleasant Gehman