White Jazz

Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns--it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer--a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire. Klein's been hung out as bait, "a bad cop to draw the heat," and the heat's coming from all sides: from local politicians, from LAPD brass, from racketeers and drug kingpins--all of them hell-bent on keeping their own secrets hidden. For Klein, "forty-two and going on dead," it's dues time. Klein tells his own story--his voice clipped, sharp, often as brutal as the events he's describing--taking us with him on a journey through a world shaped by monstrous ambition, avarice, and perversion. It's a world he created, but now he'll do anything to get out of it alive. Fierce, riveting, and honed to a razor edge, White Jazz is crime fiction at its most shattering.

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels <b>The Black Dahlia</b>, <b>The Big Nowhere</b>, <b>L.A. Confidential</b>, and <b>White Jazz</b>, were international best-sellers. His novel <b>American Tabloid</b> was <i>Time</i> magazine's Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, <b>My Dark Places</b>, was a <i>Time</i> Best Book of the Year and a <i>New York Times</i> Notable Book for 1996. He lives in Kansas City.