I'm missing the specific connection between LA Noire and books. Just the tie in book? Because games have had tie in books for a long, long time. At least the late 80s.
And have been inspired by them since the beginning. Heck, the first adventure games were even all text. Including one that was similarly themed (you play a detective, anyway)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadline_%28video_game%29
Beyond that, back then, because of the limited amount of space you had on the disk, a lot of times you were supposed to read the text in a little booklet that came with the game.
Heck, the first game I had for my C-64 was a whole bunch of mysteries that you had to solve (along with a little book of the text you had to read). I remember because my father didn't want me playing games on it, but this didn't count because it was mostly text or something.