From Publishers Weekly
Returning to Los Angeles a few years after World War II (the setting of his last novel, The Black Dahlia ), Ellroy has come up with an ambitious, enthralling melodrama painted on a broad, dark canvas. The novel's first half interweaves two stories of lonely, driven lawmen investigating the crimes of social outcasts. In the county sheriff's office, Deputy Danny Upshaw finds that his probe of a series of homosexual murders is unleashing some frightening personal demons. Meanwhile, DA's investigator Mal Considine is assigned to infiltrate a cadre of Hollywood leftists, knowing that in the red-scare atmosphere, any hint of Communist conspiracy he uncovers will advance his career. Impressed by Upshaw's intensity, Considine decides to use him as a decoy to seduce a powerful woman nicknamed the "Red Queen," and the two cases and their implications of corruption, deceit and past violence converge explosively. At once taut and densely detailed, this is a mystery with the grim, inexorable pull of a film noir, shot through with a strictly modern dose of extreme (though not gratuitous) brutality and a very sure sense of history and characterization. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Big Nowhere ANNOTATION
Author of the bestselling Black Dahlia, James Ellroy, pens another thriller--a noir epic of three men caught in a web of ambition, perversion and deceit during the fifties in L.A. Each is on a collision course with the Commie scare and a string of brutal murders. Reissue.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Los Angeles, 1950. Red crosscurrents and a string of brutal killings. Three men caught up in a massive web of ambition, perversion and deceit.
The characters: Danny Upshaw--a sheriff's deputy stuck with a bunch of snuffs that nobody cares about. Mal Considine--DA's office brass, climbing on the Red scare bandwagon to advance his own career. Buzz Meeks-- bagman, ex-goon and pimp for Howard Hughes, a man who fights communism for the money. All three have purchased tickets to a nightmare worse than their darkest dreams.
"Stark, brutal, tender and powerful...a remarkably vivid portrait of a remarkable time and place." (Publisher's Source)
X-rated for violence.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Returning to Los Angeles a few years after World War II (the setting of his last novel, The Black Dahlia ), Ellroy has come up with an ambitious, enthralling melodrama painted on a broad, dark canvas. The novel's first half interweaves two stories of lonely, driven lawmen investigating the crimes of social outcasts. In the county sheriff's office, Deputy Danny Upshaw finds that his probe of a series of homosexual murders is unleashing some frightening personal demons. Meanwhile, DA's investigator Mal Considine is assigned to infiltrate a cadre of Hollywood leftists, knowing that in the red-scare atmosphere, any hint of Communist conspiracy he uncovers will advance his career. Impressed by Upshaw's intensity, Considine decides to use him as a decoy to seduce a powerful woman nicknamed the ``Red Queen,'' and the two cases and their implications of corruption, deceit and past violence converge explosively. At once taut and densely detailed, this is a mystery with the grim, inexorable pull of a film noir, shot through with a strictly modern dose of extreme (though not gratuitous) brutality and a very sure sense of history and characterization. (September)
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