Jean-Paul Gratias Knihy

With its hypnotic rhythms and edgy intensity, this novel feels like a narrative from a hyperactive Dr. Seuss, driven by a hunger for violence. It explores the chaotic aftermath of the JFK assassination, asserting that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The story moves through Las Vegas, Vietnam, Cuba, and Memphis, weaving a tapestry of complicity, greed, and fear connecting three main characters: Ward Littell, a former FBI agent entangled with the mob and Howard Hughes while admiring the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King; Pete Bondurant, a hitman and anti-Communist who navigates between Vegas casinos and CIA heroin labs in Saigon; and Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop sent to Dallas in late November 1963 to eliminate a black pimp, struggling with his violent tendencies. J. Edgar Hoover serves as the master puppeteer, manipulating events with a blend of visionary zeal and pragmatism. His darkly comic predictions about LBJ and Cuba reflect the novel's tone. Weighing in at 700 pages, the narrative may seem excessive, but it captures the dual impulses of idealism and corruption in American culture, giving life to conspiracy theories while poking fun at our belief that such knowledge can effect change.

It's 1968. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King are dead. The Mob, Howard Hughes and J Edgar Hoover are in a struggle for America's soul, drawing into their murderous conspiracies the dammed and the soon-to-be damned. Wayne Tedrow Jr.: parricide, assassin, dope cooker, mouthpiece for all sides, loyal to none. His journey will take him away from the darkness and into an even greater darkness. Dwight Holly: Hoover's enforcer and hellish conspirator in terrible crimes. As Hoover's power wanes his destiny lurches towards Richard Nixon and self-annihilation Don Crutchfield: is a kid, a nobody, a wheelman and a private detective who stumbles upon an ungodly conspiracy from which he and the country may never recover. All three men are drawn to women on the opposite side of the political and moral spectrum; all are compromised and ripe for destruction. Only one of them will survive. The final part of James Ellroy's Underworld USA trilogy is set during the social and political upheaval of 1968-72. Blood's a Rover is an incandescent fusion of fact and fiction and is James Ellroy's greatest masterpiece.

It is December 6, 1941. America stands at the brink of World War II. Last hopes for peace are shattered when Japanese squadrons bomb Pearl Harbor. Los Angeles has been a haven for loyal Japanese-Americansbut now, war fever and race hate grip the city and the Japanese internment begins.

From “one of the great American writers of our time” (Los Angeles Times Book Review): a raw, explicit memoir as high-intensity and riveting as any of his novels.The year was 1958. James Ellroy was ten years old. His mother, Jean Hilliker, had divorced her fast-buck hustler husband. She gave her son a choice: live with his father or her. He chose his father, and Jean—“half gassed”—attacked him. He wished her dead. Three months later, she was murdered.Ellroy writes, “I owe her for every true thing that I am. I must remove the malediction I have placed on her and on myself,” and in The Hilliker Curse, he narrates his quest for “atonement in women.” He unsparingly describes his shattered childhood, his delinquent teens, his writing life, his love affairs and marriages, a nervous breakdown and the beginning of a relationship with an extraordinary woman who may just be the long-sought Her. It is a layered narrative of time and place, emotion and insight, sexuality and spiritual quest. And all of it is reported with gut-wrenching and heart-rending candor.A brilliant and soul-baring revelation of self—and unlike any memoir you have ever read.

With considerable, if uneven, success, the four novellas in this volume trace the intersecting paths of characters from Gifford's previous work. In the standout tale, "59 and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango," Gifford weaves real-life incidents into a narrative featuring a "weird and dangerous" heroine with "8-ball black eyes" and a Caribbean-born, drug-dealing santeria priest. Together, they kidnap two American teenagers in Mexico, embarking on a crime spree across Texas and California. This leads back to Louisiana, where Lula's mother, Marietta Fortune, ominously declares, "There's a Devil and he don't never quit," echoing the violence that permeates these stories. Amid the often fatal exploits of crime lords and small-time losers, Sailor and Lula Ripley thrive in love and fortune. In the final story, they take pride in their son, Pace, who, after a troubled past, now leads trekking expeditions in Nepal. Gifford's sharp characterizations, featuring names like Coot Veal and the Rev. Goodin Plenty, are generally supported by engaging dialogue. However, Sailor and Lula, still sounding like adolescent runaways in their 50s, present an unconvincing anchor amid the chaos surrounding them. This volume is part of a series promoting fiction that vividly brings settings to life.