Using the basic facts concerning the 1940s' notorious and yet unsolved Black Dahlia case, Ellroy creates a kaleidoscope of human passion and dark obsession. A young woman's mutilated body is found in a Los Angeles vacant lot. The story is seen through the eyes of Bucky Bleichert, ex-prize fighter and something of a boy wonder on the police force. There is no relief or humor as Bleichert arrives at a grisly discovery. Ellroy's powerful rendering of...

Wayne Tedrow, a young Vegas cop, has $6,000 in cash and no idea that he is about to plunge into the cover-up conspiracy brewing aroung Kennedy's assassination.

A novel of the Kennedy era, portraying the president in a far from flattering light. There are three protagonists: a CIA agent who pimps for JFK, another agent who trains anti-Castro rebels, and a lawyer who is a Mafia hunter. Through their eyes are seen the conflicting interests of the Kennedys, the director of the FBI, organized crime, organized labor, Castro and Cuban exiles. By the author of White Jazz.

"Freddy Otash is the man in the know and the man to know in Tinseltown. He operates with two simple rules--he'll do anything but murder, and he'll never work with commies. Freddy is a corrupt L.A. cop on the skids. He executed a cop killer named Horvath and it gores him. So Captain "Whiskey" Bill Parker cans him. Now, Freddy dons an array of new hats--sleazoid private eye, shakedown artist, matchmaker for Rock Hudson, pimp for President John F. Kennedy--and,...

The violence begins with an unsolved 1964 L.A. armored car heist that will come to have major repercussions later in the novel, as its effects ripple outward from a daring robbery into national and international affairs. There's Howard Hughes's takeover of Las Vegas, helped along by Wayne Tedrow Jr., who's working for the mob. The mob, meanwhile, is scouting casino locations in Central America and the Caribbean, and working to ensure Nixon defeats...

A single-volume edition of three of the novels featuring Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins of Los Angeles. The first involves the apparently random killings of 20 women, the second a multiple murder committed with a pre-Civil-War revolver, and the third a conspiracy of police corruption.

"From "one of the great American writers of our time" (Los Angeles Times Book Review)--a brilliant historical crime novel, a pulse-pounding, as-it-happens narrative that unfolds in Los Angeles and Mexico in the wake in Pearl Harbor. New Year's Eve 1941, war has been declared and the Japanese internment is in full swing. Los Angeles is gripped by war fever and racial hatred. Sergeant Dudley Smith of the Los Angeles Police Department is now Army Captain...

Set in 1940s Los Angeles. Two police officers, Bucky Bleichert and his partner, Lee Blanchard, investigate the death of Elizabeth Short - also known as The Black Dahlia, a young woman who is found brutally murdered. With a corpse so mutilated, the photos are kept from the public. Bucky soon realizes that his girlfriend had ties to the deceased, and soon after that, he begins uncovering corruption and conspiracy within the police department. The case...

Set in 1940s Los Angeles. Two police officers, Bucky Bleichert and his partner, Lee Blanchard, investigate the death of Elizabeth Short - also known as The Black Dahlia, a young woman who is found brutally murdered. With a corpse so mutilated, the photos are kept from the public. Bucky soon realizes that his girlfriend had ties to the deceased, and soon after that, he begins uncovering corruption and conspiracy within the police departmen. The case...