Red Sheet
A Novel
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
From bestselling, award-winning author James Ellroy, "the neo-noir eminence of L.A. crime fiction" (The New Yorker)—a gritty, fast-paced historical crime thriller set in 1962 Los Angeles during the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis
"The Freddy Otash novels will be mentioned . . . as some of Ellroy's best work.” —NPR
It’s late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The Russkies blinked and pulled their ICBMs out of Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy fears reprisals from seething commies. He orders a red probe and puts the LAPD on the job.
Freddy Otash is injudiciously named the lead investigating officer. He’s a stone-cold criminal with police sanction and a harrowing dope habit. He homes in on a red-front trade union. There’s a murder on Halloween night. It may link to ex-VP and current gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon and two commie snuffs from eight years back. Freddy’s overworked and overamped. He’s running the probe, and Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman—Tricky Dick Nixon’s head goons—have hired him to keep Nixon away from the smear-minded press.
L.A. is coming unglued. Ex-cop/lawyer Tom Bradley is running for a city council seat and pushing the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner is along for the ride, out to exploit racial tension and peddle untold copies of his smut rag.
Red Sheet is James Ellroy’s most crazed kamikaze run and a daring, subversive work of fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The relentless latest from MWA Grand Master Ellroy (The Enchanters) immerses readers in 1962 L.A. in the fraught aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. When Attorney General Robert Kennedy launches a sweeping anti-communist crackdown, Freddy Otash, a drug-addicted LAPD officer, is thrust into the heart of the storm. Otash's initial inquiry focuses on the Creative Trade Workers Alliance, a communist-affiliated union mired in corruption, drug trafficking, and political violence, and soon intersects with the racially charged battle over California's Rumford Fair Housing Act, which disallows discrimination in public housing. Along the way, Otash crosses paths with real-life figures including civil rights leader Tom Bradley and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, as well as fictional union bosses who blur the boundaries between crime and politics. The brutal murder of a communist courier and a string of unsolved homicides deepen the intrigue as Otash navigates betrayals and ideological rifts within the LAPD and beyond, culminating in a tense showdown involving secret safe houses and a shadowy organization known as the Indigenous Cell. Ellroy's dense, slang-laced prose paints a brooding portrait of a city awash in Cold War anxiety. It's a rewarding ride for noir fans.
Customer Reviews
Red Sheet is fascinating
Who else can create situations where the Kennedys, Nixon, and Lindbergh bump up against fictional creations in an act of vicious verisimilitude that seems to conjure a greater truth that the lies we’ve been told and sold? Another great work by Mr. Ellroy.
Tedious and confusing.
More wise guys than wisdom. Terribly repetitive. Impossible to follow. Far too many characters. Violence for the sake of outrage and violence,
Very unsatisfying.