Motive & Opportunity is principally located in Los Angeles, where the poet has lived and worked since 1968. The five pieces collected here are various attempts at poetic language trying to settle in this metropolitan sprawl of contradictions. Or as Carey McWilliams called it in his seminal Southern California: an Island on the Land, "very much a city that refuses to know itself." From 'Driving Platitudes' and 'The Grid,' both written while driving across the seemingly endless metropolis, to the most recent 'Motive & Opportunity,' a detective poem, this book moves around Vangelisti's almost native city, leaving a trail of affections and casual encounters.