Widespread Panic

<b>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 <i>Confidential </i>magazine.</b><br><br>Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man <i>to</i> 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 <i>Confidential</i> magazine.<i> </i><br> <br><i>Confidential</i> 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 <i>CONFESS</i>.<br> <br>“I’m consumed with candor and wracked with recollection. I’m revitalized and resurgent. My <i>meshugenah </i>march down memory lane begins <i>NOW</i>.”<br> <br>In Freddy’s viciously entertaining voice, <i>Widespread Panic </i>torches 1950s Hollywood to the ground. It’s a blazing revelation of coruscating corruption, pervasive paranoia, and of sin and redemption with nothing in between.<br> <br>Here is James Ellroy in savage quintessence. Freddy Otash confesses—and <i>you</i> are here to read and succumb.<br>