The Big Nowhere (L.A. Quartet #2)

by James Ellroy

Overview

The D. A.'s brass, a sheriff's deputy, and a rough-and-tumble bagman are unknowingly chasing a nightmare in this thrilling novel from the author of "some of the most powerful crime novels ever written" (New York Times).

The author of The Black Dahlia presents the powerful second novel in his L.A. Quartet. In The Big Nowhere, three men are caught up in a massive web of ambition, perversion and deceit. A remarkably vivid portrait of a remarkable time and place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892962839
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/01/1988
Series:	L.A. Quartet Series , #2
Pages:	420
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

The winner of numerous awards and accolades, Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is one of the most acclaimed mystery authors writing today. He is best known for his L. A. Quartet novels (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L. A. Confidential, and White Jazz), two of which were adapted into movies. The Black Dahlia was based in part on the unsolved real-life murder of his mother when Ellroy was 10 years old. He is also the author of Perfidia, the Underworld USA series, and his memoir My Dark Places, among others.

Editorial Reviews

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)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly