A Hello To Arms

"An ingeniously plotted look at a side of postwar America we don't often see, and extremely relevant today." --Ellen Clair Lamb, author, editor, and assistant editor of Books to Die For.

"Dennis Broe has done it again! Private investigator Harry Palmer takes us on another twisting, careening ride through the noir underworld of early Cold War America, with racist, greedy, corrupt, violent, erotic Los Angeles as the backdrop. Palmer tears the veil off the nascent military-industrial complex as his escapades entangle him with sordid industrialists cavorting with unreconstructed Nazis in the midst of Henry Wallace's 1948 presidential campaign-the last gasp for progressive America as the country slides headlong into Cold War madness. Espionage, murder, and intrigue that will have you turning pages as fast as your eyes can follow."-Peter Kuznick, co-author with Oliver Stone of The Untold History of the United States.

"Dennis Broe is an international expert on film noir...[whose] expansive knowledge informs his homage to past crime writers. Compelling characterization and clever dialogue...highlight a wonderfully compromised private detective, troubled clients, a cohort of devious criminals and plodding FBI muscle, all of which expands upon the political corruption at the heart of the US." -- Paul Simon, Morning Star

"[Through T]he author's ingenious plotting...[c]onnections are drawn among the seemingly most unrelated characters and backstories in a baroque explosion of tall tale-telling...unspooled with a fresh, hardboiled voice...If and when the major motion picture is ever made, they'd hardly have to hire another scriptwriter: The smart, snappy, arch dialogue is all here." -- Eric Gordon, Better Lemons Most Prolific Critic Award, 2019.

Semi-corruptible ex-LAPD cop Harry Palmer is hired by an African-American defense-industry worker who is a victim of workplace contaminants to help him get his pension from an airline industry which may be going bankrupt. Harry is also asked to plug a leak in the Henry Wallace presidential campaign which is sabotaging its efforts to get off the ground. As he follows a trail strewn with corpses and sex, confronting airline industry bigwigs, philandering generals, their lascivious wives, and an Okie foreman with ties to the Tulsa massacre, Harry starts making dangerous connections.

Dennis Broe, a journalist and professor, is the author of the Harry Palmer L.A. Trilogy, the first book of which is Left of Eden and the third is The Precinct with the Golden Arm.