White Jazz

Los Angeles, 1958.

Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns--it''s standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He''s a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer--a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire.

Klein''s been hung out as bait, "a bad cop to draw the heat," and the heat''s coming from all sides: from local politicians, from LAPD brass, from racketeers and drug kingpins--all of them hell-bent on keeping their own secrets hidden. For Klein, "forty-two and going on dead," it''s dues time.

Klein tells his own story--his voice clipped, sharp, often as brutal as the events he''s describing--taking us with him on a journey through a world shaped by monstrous ambition, avarice, and perversion. It''s a world he created, but now he''ll do anything to get out of it alive.

Fierce, riveting, and honed to a razor edge, White Jazz is crime fiction at its most shattering.

From the Trade Paperback edition.