Dennis Broe

I am a novelist, journalist, critic, educator, writing coach and broadcaster.

My Harry Palmer detective thriller trilogy about LA in the late 1940s titled “Calamitous Corruption” includes Left of Eden, about the Hollywood Blacklist, A Hello to Arms about the rise of the weapons industry in a time of peace and The Precinct With The Golden Arm about the links between the LAPD and Big Pharma at a time of tension in the Mexican-American community of Boyle Heights.

The current novel, The House That Buff Built, takes place in 1950 and follows Harry and his partner Crystal as they confront the booming real estate industry in a time of both abundance and exclusion. This second trilogy is titled “The Dark Ages.” The second entry, also titled The Dark Ages, is Harry’s encounter with Hollywood during what Dalton Trumbo called “The Time of the Toad” where each turned on the other. The third entry details the changeover in the porn industry from being run by sleazy gangsters to being run by perhaps even sleazier corporate types.