Alex Harvey: Song Noir – Tom Waits and the Spirit of Los Angeles (Reaktion Books)

I REVIEWED Rickie Lee Jones' vividly illuminating autobiography Last Chance Texaco in these pages earlier this year, applying a Beat microscope to her always energetic, often chaotic, life story: how far, I enquired, was Jones' image as bohemian chick with a cutely-perched beret just that – an expertly constructed persona by the determinedly manipulative record business of the day.