Widespread Panic

From the modern master of noir comes a novel based on the real-life Hollywood fixer Freddy Otash, the malevolent monarch of the 1950s L.A. underground, and his Tinseltown tabloid Confidential magazine.

"Widespread Panic is quintessential Ellroy, but with enough alliteration, Hollyweird flavor, booze, distressed damsels, communist conspiracies, and extortion to make this the most Ellroy novel he's ever written.... A spiritual companion to L.A. Confidential." --NPR

Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in '50s L.A. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp--and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine.

Confidential presaged the idiot Internet--and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank. It mauled misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Mattress Jack Kennedy, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson--Frantic Freddy outed them all. He was the Tattle Tyrant who held Hollywood hostage, and now he's here to confess.

"I'm consumed with candor and wracked with recollection. I'm revitalized and resurgent. My meshugenah march down memory lane begins NOW."

In Freddy's viciously entertaining voice, Widespread Panic torches 1950s Hollywood to the ground. It's a blazing revelation of coruscating corruption, pervasive paranoia, and sin and redemption with nothing in between.

Here is James Ellroy in savage quintessence. Freddy Otash confesses--and you are here to read and succumb.


Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 07/26/2022
ISBN: 9780593313107
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.19w x 0.69d