It was All Downhill from There

William Mulholland's vision of an aqueduct to carry water from distant mountains and across trackless desert to the dusty little town of Los Angeles rivaled the visions of Rome's engineers or the architects of China's Great Wall. Indeed, Mulholland's aqueduct was and to my knowledge still is the longest in the Western Hemisphere. Rivers in the Desert, the story of his inspiration and the execution of this amazing construction, is as stirring an adventure as any you will ever read, thanks to scholar Margaret Davis.

Amazon reviewer Michael Chadwick reminds us that "Fans of the movie Chinatown, Roman Polanski's classic detective melodrama, will love this true account of how desperately needed water was brought hundreds of miles to Los Angeles,where growth in the early 20th century was rapidly outracing the city's meager water supply. Like the 1974 movie with John Huston and Jack Nicholson, the real story has villains and heroes worthy of the big screen."

- Richard Curtis