Bryan Burrough reviews James O’Shea’s “The Deal From Hell” in the New York Times column “Off the Shelf.”

Burrough writes: “Mr. O’Shea, a onetime top editor at both The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, tells the story of these two papers’ magnificently botched corporate marriage — a fine tale, though from the subtitle it would appear that his publisher didn’t want to market it as such, perhaps thinking that no one much cared.”