Hollywood Nocturnes(1993)

James Ellroy

Set in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1959, Hollywood Nocturnes gives us an afterword and six stories set in the same crime-ridden, sex-crazed period of history of James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet novels (which include L.A. Confidential and The Big Nowhere ).

Dig the swinging sax man's doing repos and plotting a kidnapping-of himself; a tommy gun is ripping apart windows, curtains, and bodies in High Darktown; a carhop at Scrivner's is keeping two extremely sweet sugar daddies, Howard Hughes and mobster Mickey Cohen, happy-until the scene turns murderous.

This is the hip-hop hard-edged world of L.A. 1950s cars with fins, Commies in closets, starmakers with come-ons, ex-cons with guns, and cops with mean streaks as wide as Sunset Strip.

James Ellroy's bizarre, stark tales dazzle us with their unexpected humor, raw brutality, and slightly lighter-than-usual noir realism. Hollywood Nocturnes is quintessential bluesy, black, and very, very hot.