RaveThe Outline\"Bloom’s exhaustive new biography is cinematic in scope as well as feel; each turn of the page reveals another finely-wrought revelation or flummoxing plot twist ... The book reads like a love letter to not only the irrepressible Mrs. Burns, but to the city of San Francisco itself, with especial attention lavished upon the gilded excess and savage grotesqueries of its lawless prewar years ... Lisa Riggin’s book on Inez came out a year before Bloom’s, but Bloom’s is the far more satisfactory read, in terms of pacing, storytelling, and research; he spent over 25 years reconstructing Burns’ world, and it shows.\
