The Big Nowhere (First Edition, inscribed)

James Ellroy

ISBN 10: 0892962836 / ISBN 13: 9780892962839

Published by Mysterious Press, New York, 1988

First Edition. INSCRIBED on the title page: "To Frances / Hideous, hideous, hideously good sex is about to claim you! / James Ellroy." The second entry in Ellroy's "L.A. Quartet." About Fine in a lightly rubbed, Near Fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 169047

Synopsis:

The D. A.'s brass, a sheriff's deputy, and a rough-and-tumble bagman are unknowingly chasing a nightmare in this thrilling novel from the author of "some of the most powerful crime novels ever written" (New York Times).



The author of The Black Dahlia presents the powerful second novel in his L.A. Quartet. In The Big Nowhere, three men are caught up in a massive web of ambition, perversion and deceit. A remarkably vivid portrait of a remarkable time and place.

Reviews: Returning to Los Angeles a few years after World War II (the setting of his last novel, The Black Dahlia ), Ellroy has come up with an ambitious, enthralling melodrama painted on a broad, dark canvas. The novel's first half interweaves two stories of lonely, driven lawmen investigating the crimes of social outcasts. In the county sheriff's office, Deputy Danny Upshaw finds that his probe of a series of homosexual murders is unleashing some frightening personal demons. Meanwhile, DA's investigator Mal Considine is assigned to infiltrate a cadre of Hollywood leftists, knowing that in the red-scare atmosphere, any hint of Communist conspiracy he uncovers will advance his career. Impressed by Upshaw's intensity, Considine decides to use him as a decoy to seduce a powerful woman nicknamed the "Red Queen," and the two cases and their implications of corruption, deceit and past violence converge explosively. At once taut and densely detailed, this is a mystery with the grim, inexorable pull of a film noir, shot through with a strictly modern dose of extreme (though not gratuitous) brutality and a very sure sense of history and characterization.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Big Nowhere (First Edition, inscribed)
Publisher: Mysterious Press, New York
Publication Date: 1988
Binding: Hardcover
Dust Jacket Condition: dj
Signed: Signed
Edition: First Edition.