Product Description From the acclaimed modern master of noir–a huge, electrifying, explosive new novel, his first since the international bestseller American Tabloid.Dallas, November ‘63–the heart of the American Dream detonated.Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop, arrives with a loathsome job to do. He’s got $6,000 in cash and no idea that he is about to plunge into the cover-up conspiracy already brewing around the assassination, no idea that this will mark the beginning of a hellish five-year ride through the private underbelly of public policy.Ellroy’s furiously paced narrative tracks Tedrow’s ride: Dallas to Vegas, with the Mob and Howard Hughes, south with the Klan and J. Edgar Hoover, shipping out to Vietnam and returning home, the bearer of white powder, plotting new deaths as 1968 approaches…The Cold Six Thousand is the 1960’s under Ellroy’s blistering lens, the icons of the era mingling with cops, killers, hoods, and provocateurs. Historical confluence as American Nightmare. Fierce, epic fiction. A Masterpiece. From Publishers Weekly Clipped, stylized, hard-nosed and repetitive, this novel cuts like a dark, 24-hour Beat poem and sounds like Jack Webb on crack. Ellroy's latest noir tale is full of his trademark violence, sex and rough language. Readers follow five years in the life of Las Vegas police officer Wayne Tedrow Jr., who begins the novel making a trip to Dallas to kill a pimp for $6,000. From there, Tedrow is inadvertently mixed up with practically every cultural and political event and figure of the 1960s: Vietnam, Cuba, the Kennedy assassinations, Oswald, Ruby, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, Sonny Liston, mobster Carlos Marcellos, Martin Luther King Jr. and J. Edgar Hoover. Craig Wasson does an excellent job of translating the written page into a day-length rap of short phrases, peppering listeners with rapid cuts and jabs until they are exhausted yet exhilarated. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Review “Ellroy rips into American culture like a chainsaw in an abbatoir. . . . Pick it up if you dare; put it down if you can.” –Time “A wild ride. . . . An American political underbelly teeming with conspiracy and crime. . . . So hard-boiled you could chip a tooth on it.” –The New York Times Book Review “A ripping read....the book is pure testosterone.” –The Plain Dealer “A great and terrible book about a great and terrible time in America.” –The Village VoiceFrom the Trade Paperback edition. From the Inside Flap From the acclaimed modern master of noir?a huge, electrifying, explosive new novel, his first since the international bestseller American Tabloid.Dallas, November ?63?the heart of the American Dream detonated.Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop, arrives with a loathsome job to do. He?s got $6,000 in cash and no idea that he is about to plunge into the cover-up conspiracy already brewing around the assassination, no idea that this will mark the beginning of a hellish five-year ride through the private underbelly of public policy.Ellroy?s furiously paced narrative tracks Tedrow?s ride: Dallas to Vegas, with the Mob and Howard Hughes, south with the Klan and J. Edgar Hoover, shipping out to Vietnam and returning home, the bearer of white powder, plotting new deaths as 1968 approaches?The Cold Six Thousand is the 1960?s under Ellroy?s blistering lens, the icons of the era mingling with cops, killers, hoods, and provocateurs. Historical confluence as American Nightmare. Fierce, epic fiction. A Masterpiece. About the Author James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His LA Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, and White Jazz—were international bestsellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Novel of the Year for 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. He lives in Kansas City. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved