Description:

From Publishers Weekly

At one point in Ellroy's new mystery, a character wonders if the world is "nothing but wimps, pimps, psychos and sex fiends," and by the end of this book the reader wonders, too. Estranged from his wife and daughters and on the verge of forced early retirement, L.A.P.D. Sgt. Lloyd Hopkins is assigned to "liaise" with the FBI in investigating bank robberies in which the doxies of philandering bank managers have been held hostage. Hopkins's "hot-dogging" investigative methods blur the lines between good guys and bad guys, and by the final series of bloody climaxes almost everybody seems psycho. The book hurtles along with almost equal gore and slapstick, L.A.'s sleazy sides are brilliantly drawn and if the ending is a bit melodramatic readers will have had their money's worth. Ellroy (Because the Night can't write a dull line.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"His spare noir style . . . hits like a cleaver but . . . is honed like a scalpel." –_Chicago Tribune_

"Nobody in this generation matches the breadth and depth of James Ellroy's way with noir." –_The Detroit News_

“One of the great American writers of our time.” –_Los Angeles Times_

"Our best living mystery writer. . . . Literate, suspenseful, honest. . . . His pages crackle with maniac energy. . . . Ellroy captures the vocabulary, the rituals, the smells and rhythms and colors of real people living on the edge. . . . Nobody since Chandler has evoked so perfectly the seamy side of LA. " –_Austin Chronicle_