Widespread Panic

by James Ellroy

Brought to you by Penguin.

Freddy is an ex-L.A. cop on the skids. He snuffed a cop killer in cold blood - and it got to him bad. Now he's a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp - and, most notably, the head strongarm goon for Confidential magazine.

Welcome to the world of the malevolent monarch of the Hollywood underground - a tale of pervasive paranoia teeming with communist conspiracies, FBI finks, celebrity smut films and strange bedfellows.

In Widespread Panic, we traverse the depths of '50s L.A. and dig on the inner workings of Confidential. You'll go to Burt Lancaster's lushly appointed torture den; you'll groove overhyped legend James Dean as Freddy's chief stooge; you'll be there for Freddy's ring-a-ding rendezvous with Liz Taylor; you'll be front and centre as Freddy anoints himself the 'Tattle Tyrant Who Held Hollywood Hostage'.

'Purgatory is rarely this much fun.' - Financial Times

© James Ellroy 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Noir, Historical Fiction, Thriller, Mystery Thriller

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).

Reviews

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

He may be 73, but James Ellroy keeps cranking out wonderful hard-nosed LA Noir crime novels. For a few years he seemed to have lost his edge, but this 3rd installment of his 2nd LA Quartet is a wonderful read, a book that is hard to put down and for fans of his style of writing it makes us look forward to his next effort.
Once again Ellroy features infamous LA cop Freddy Otash to give us the scoop as to the happenings in the early 1950’s in this fictionalized look at varied topics. We have politicians, movie stars, wannabe actors, Communists, pornography, murders, muscle, drugs, and so much more. But much of this book is built around the Caryl Chessman kidnapping/rape/murder trials that rocked Los Angeles for a few years.
Otash tells his story as a confession as to his part in much of this, since the book begins over 20 years since Freddy has died and he is in Purgatory and has been told he can move on from there if he tells the truth about what really happened in these affairs. In real life Otash was a fixer, and with that background it allows Ellroy to spin story that is part fiction, part Otash memoir and is able to give us a lot of “dirt” on what really went on in LA. We meet a young James Dean, aspiring actress Lois Nettleton, Marlon Brando, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Senator Jack Kennedy. All come in Freddy’s orbit and each has as part to play in this saga, one in which Otash makes things happen and is there when things fall apart.
Being close to Ellroy’s age, I know the names, the movie scandals, the tattler sheets that Freddy helps along the way. Younger readers might not know the names, but his style of writing will keep one and all burning the midnight oil to keep up with the action as only Otash can tell it in a slang/hipster voice. A voice of one who was not at all adverse to doing bad deeds himself, and then using his ill gotten money to try and make things right if that is possible.
Freddy Otash is a complicated person, a person who knows evil when he sees it and acts on it (sometimes for tabloid magazines and other times for personal reasons). It is the heyday of the hard-boiled LAPD. Movie studios demand results (can’t let public know Rock Hudson is gay), tabloids pander to readers who love the lurid tales that only Hollywood seemingly can provide, and Freddy Otash was there, was a part of it, made a lot of it happen and gives us a first-hand, birds eye look at one the most corrupt yes fascinating periods in the history of Los Angeles. Hold onto your seats, James Ellroy takes us for one wild ride, yet again, thanks to Freddy Otash’s desire to free himself from Purgatory!
This review was first published on www.mysteryandsuspense.com

[Leftbanker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave this three stars instead of one simply because it was so ridiculous that I laughed out loud several times, although the author wasn't telling a joke.

However, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe during most of this novel mostly set in the 50s, you know, back when everyone was some sorta homo, perv, child molester, peeping tom, glory-hole aficionado, speed freak, heroin addict, donkey show connoisseur, fag hag, pot head, smut peddler, fuck rodeo cowboy, blow job artist, whore hound…on a side note, I ran out of terms a couple times back there, but I just had to open to any random page to find more. I could go on for 336 pages, but I think you get the idea.

This book is only 336 pages long, but it must have been really difficult for Ellroy to type it using only one hand, because with the other he was furiously flogging his flaccid flounder which lay DOA in his grip, half-assed and way below half-mast, a masturbatory man-overboard maneuver, his puerile prose parades as an erectile dysfunction SOS for his sinking ship of sexuality so that no amount of salacious, smutty slang can send it surging back to the surface.

Can I please stop now? I just don’t have the stamina for this sort of wordplay, but Ellroy can go on all day. He must have a special smut thesaurus and rhyming dictionary on hand that he bought at a sex toy shop for those special moments when he needs something to rhyme with “butt plug” or “fist fuck” or needs a way to turn “priapic” into an adverb.

My favorite alliteration in the novel was “ruthlessly rusty-tromboning a red-faced Russian rump ranger on roofies.”

You know that old chestnut about when you catch your child smoking you make her smoke a whole pack to shy the kid off cigarettes? If you hear your child using profanity, make her read this entire book out loud. Your little eight-year-old will never swear again. Of course, child services will promptly remove the child from your home, but you did your job as a parent.

[OutlawPoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m kind of going back and forth on this one.

Ellroy’s style is wonderfully in evidence here – his rapid fire patter, the oh-so-cool turn of a vintage phrase, the sheer nonchalance of violence with a smattering of unfortunate but right for its time racism and homophobia (his characters, not him) that blast you straight into a very hard-boiled past.

The thing is that I thought I was excited to hear Freddy Otash’s story from the man himself…until I wasn’t.

The book is equal parts glorious and exhausting. Freddy’s narcissism and braggadocio swing from humorous and endearing to irritating in a lightning flash. His stories of the sins of the Hollywood vintage elite are fun and trashy until they get a little tiresome. Eventually, they’re no longer scandalous sleaze – they’re just…more stories.

Yet, every time I thought of just stopping the read, a turn of phrase or a situation would draw me right back in.

I’d say that I enjoyed the read overall and I think that Ellroy fans will be glad they’ve read it, but I also ended it just kind of glad that Otash was done talking.

*ARC provided via Net Galley

[David C Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ellroy used to be a good, sometimes great, writer but that was several books ago. His hepcat POV stream of consciousness spiels oooooold and causes him to lose the narrative. There’s no plot here so issues (the Red Scare) and characters (USC basketball player/love interest “Stretch”) appear and disappear at random. And I know that public figures, especially dead ones and their estates, can’t sue for libel, but nearly all the real life characters in this novel, ranging from LA Chief Parker to James Dean (who is accused of murder!) to Liz Taylor (and dozens more), have reasons to be aggrieved at Ellroy’s scabrous treatment of them. (Nearly every man has the size of his manhood man-checked which is just icky.) Writing a novel about sex n voyeur gossip magazines in the 50s tips Ellroy over into becoming his subject. It’s the literary equivalent of Gresham’s Law: bad culture drives out good.

[Bookreporter.com Mystery & Thriller · Rating 5 out of 5]

WIDESPREAD PANIC is not so much a reading experience as an immersion into a time (the 1950s) and place (Los Angeles). The events described by author James Ellroy become more real by virtue of his (occasional) exaggeration in a work that is ostensibly historical fiction. Even the prose that he spits out staccato-style is more than what it appears to be. His sentences are usually short and loaded with alliteration, even as they are cringe-inducing in content and description, designed to elicit enough cuts and bruises to exhaust a giant box of wholesale club bandages. In WIDESPREAD PANIC, they trample readers and then merrily drag them along.

Those expecting the third volume of the Second L.A. Quartet (after PERFIDIA and THIS STORM) will instead find the posthumously written (and fictional) autobiography of Fred Otash narrated as the man himself resides in Purgatory, where he is intermittently visited and violated by those he wronged during his life. As with most of Ellroy’s characters, Otash actually existed in what we like to call our real world. He ran a detective agency that did investigative work for Confidential magazine, which printed tawdry and scandalous stories about the glamorous, rich and famous. Readers of Ellroy’s previous work will remember Otash from THE COLD SIX THOUSAND and BLOOD’S A ROVER, both of which were a part of his Underworld USA trilogy, as well as SHAKEDOWN, a novella that is the basis for the first third of WIDESPREAD PANIC. As expected here, Otash is given to full, ungoverned vent.

The book is written by Otash in 2020, but aside from a vignette on the day of his death in 1992, it takes place primarily between 1952 and 1960. We follow Otash as he demonstrates a proclivity for using virtually every illicit opportunity he can as an LAPD cop; he has a variety of outside income streams ranging from extortion and procuring to drug dealing and strong-arm robbery. Otash is ultimately bounced from the force by a new police chief who has vowed to clean up corruption, but is barely out the door before he acquires a private investigator’s license by using a shortcut. He then picks up where he left off before hooking up with Confidential.

However, Otash is haunted by a murder that he committed while with the LAPD, so much so that he anonymously pays the victim’s widow a monthly stipend while worshipping her from afar. When she is murdered and the case remains unsolved, Otash begins his own investigation, even as he digs up dirt on the rich, famous and worshipped in politics and show business, which causes the circulation of Confidential to reach stratospheric heights.

The stories --- particularly those that never saw the light of day --- are graphic, stunning and in many instances hilarious, especially if one is familiar with politicians and film stars of the 1940s and ’50s. There might have been a problem publishing these pieces when the principals were alive. As far as Ellroy and his book are concerned in the here and now, the stories appear in a work of fiction in which everyone mentioned is deceased, from John F. Kennedy to John Wayne, James Dean to Caryl Chessman. The language and topics seem shocking in this era of woke, but I doubt that Ellroy cares.

WIDESPREAD PANIC is just over 300 pages but seems longer and deeper (yes, I phrased it like that on purpose) in all of the best ways. No punches are pulled, and no literary expense is spared. Just to prove that too much of a good thing does not exist, Ellroy is working on a sequel to this book. Please, sir. Write quickly. And don’t forget Bob Crane.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Ellroy has made a pretty good living mining the depths of human depravity. He is hard-nosed, hard-boiled, and uncompromising. By comparison, he makes Dashiel Hammett and Mickey Spillane look positively effeminate. Mike Hammer’s got nothing on Freaky Freddy Otash, except maybe some professional integrity and a few remnants of unshredded human decency.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you ever wish to replicate the experience of being at an inescapable family dinner with a pompous bore who never gets tired of telling tales of how much smarter, stronger, more devious, more capable, and more sexually attractive than everybody else, read this book.

Me, not so much – for that, I have actual family. I gave up on this book about half-way into it.

This new book got a lot of praise. The author has been writing well-received novels for decades now. I haven't read any of them. This book may be the work of someone past their prime – it doesn't seem to be covering any original territory.

I think that praising this book may be a way for prestige book reviewers and mere mortals to show that they are courageously independent spirits and not prisoners of today's tedious liberal PC-correctness. The reviewer can show that his/her sophisticated taste by singing the book's praises as the tiresome narrator/private detective protagonist insults every group now considered sacrosanct, eventually sounding like he's mentally checking a list in his head (“Oh, wait, I haven't insulted Armenians yet”). I'm not mad at the character or the author for putting these insults between book covers – I just thought it was boring.

I considered that the narrator's awfulness was actually intentional, since he DOES end up getting punished in the afterlife, which occurs at the beginning of the book, so is not a spoiler. Maybe so. A great writer might have made his awfulness entertaining, but it's a very difficult literary trick to pull off – I certainly couldn't do it.

Read more fiction, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Phooey. Give me non-fiction any day.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ellroy's just going to keep playing the hits, isn't he?

-Alliteration, alliteration, ALLITERATION!
-Red-headed reds who also may or may not be feds
-Celebrity name vomit (this time with Joi Lansing, Marlon Brando, and Natalie Wood. Thankful that poor Joan Crawford got a break.)
-LA, drugs, booze, broads.
-JFK, Billy Parker, etc.

I will say that while this reminded me a bit of White Jazz in that it focused on one perspective, it did have a plot and had some satisfying moments. The running gag of Orson Welles doing the Black Dahlia murder made me laugh. But it's typical Ellroy. And lesser Ellroy.

[Ubik 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

(L’America) “…quanto più ama qualcuno, tanto più vuole conoscerne i vizi.”

Nella bibliografia di James Ellroy i due romanzi più recenti, “Perfidia” (2014) e “Questa tempesta” (2018), costituiscono l’inizio della quadrilogia “Second L.A. Quartet”, prequel della famosa Underworld USA da molti ritenuta il capolavoro dello scrittore (“American Tabloid”, “Sei pezzi facili”, “Il sangue è randagio”).

Sorprendendo noi fans ellroyani in trepida attesa del successivo episodio, l’autore sembra essersi preso una pausa dall’ambizioso programma originario, dando alle stampe “Widespread Panic“ (Panico), opera autonoma e in apparenza slegata dal filo conduttore che collega i romanzi sopra citati in una sorta di trentennale oscura controstoria americana, da Pearl Harbor ai primi anni ’70.

Poco importa: comunque lo si voglia classificare, lo stile resta comunque un inconfondibile “Ellroy” d.o.c. articolato a partire da due personaggi fulcro del romanzo: uno è la voce narrante Freddie Otash che, con tipico espediente hollywoodiano, racconta i suoi anni più “gloriosi” dall’oltretomba. Ex poliziotto poi estorsore, doppiogiochista, tossicomane, free lance in grado di trascinare la tiratura della rivista scandalistica “Confidential” (“Il vizio a los angeles. Quel mondo perverso. Tutti conoscono tutti. Tutti parlano. E “Confidential” intercettava tutto quel mondo perverso…”) oltre il milione di copie; così si presenta senza remore: “Freddy O è il Re del Ricatto, lo Sciamano della Vergogna. E’ il Cane Perverso della Notte”.

Conoscendo il modus operandi di Ellroy non stupisce apprendere che Freddie Otash è un personaggio realmente esistito (1922-1992), dispone oggi della sua brava pagina di wikipedia e sono altresì reperibili in rete interviste dove non si esime dallo sciorinare le sue discutibili abilità e, diciamo così, le proprie referenze lavorative.

L’altra figura chiave che emerge nella seconda parte fra le pieghe del racconto, benché detenuto nel braccio della morte di San Quintino per tutti gli anni ’50 in cui si svolgono le vicende del romanzo, è il famoso Caryl Chessman, rapinatore e stupratore seriale che, precursore di tutti i casi trasfigurati dai mass-media, divise l’opinione pubblica americana e mondiale sull’applicazione della pena di morte, autore di diversi libri scritti in carcere, otto rinvii sulla soglia della camera a gas fino all’esecuzione avvenuta il 2 maggio 1960 (anche qui per i dettagli si può ricorrere a wikipedia…).

Di fatto il romanzo di Ellroy appare scarsamente improntato al thriller (c’è giusto un paio di omicidi tanto per non deludere le aspettative…) e ben più interessato agli aspetti scandalistici che dipingono Los Angeles e la Hollywood degli anni 50 come un crogiuolo di corruzione, vizi sessuali di ogni genere, droga a fiumi, da cui non si salva nessuno dei personaggi (attori, registi, musicisti, politici) entrati nel mito anche di qua dall’Atlantico, terreno fertile per i ricattatori estorsori (quelli che irrompono col flash nelle stanze degli alberghi di lusso) di cui Freddie Otash appare il Number One. E tutto ciò perché “…Los Angeles è satura di paranoia. L’America è preda della paura. Siamo negli anni cinquanta, e il popolo americano è avido di notizie, di gossip, di scheletri negli armadi”.

Ellroy ci va pesantissimo su questo tasto, non senza qualche rischio di ripetitività, riproponendo come un mantra le ossessioni che improntano tutta la sua bibliografia, la scrittura densa di allitterazioni e punti esclamativi che ne sconsigliano la lettura ai puristi, agli schizzinosi, ai non amanti del genere e a coloro che serbano un ricordo romantico del mondo di James Dean, Liz Taylor, John F. Kennedy, Burt Lancaster, Nicholas Ray, Ingrid Bergman, Marlon Brando, ecc. ecc.

[Michael Burke · Rating 2 out of 5]

The ghost pepper is rated 400 times hotter than tabasco sauce. Bite into a one and blame only yourself when you flame out. If you walk straight into a James Ellroy novel you should already know what is going to hit you. I love film noir and I loved the "L.A. Confidential" film, so I jumped at the opportunity to read "Widespread Panic".  

Midway through I could hardly wait to get it over with and slam it as the worst thing I have read all year. The main character, Freddy Otash, is a dirty ex-cop now reporting for the sleazy tabloid Confidential. The first half is set on spreading every kind of slander, factual or not, on any recognizable celebrity of the time. Only sleazebags, addicts, perverts and rapists roam the landscape and Freddy has the dirt and has a free pass to murder or bed anyone of his choice. When there are no restraints, no limits, it gets wearying to wade through. After finishing "Widespread Panic" I tracked down some of his interviews and found that this novel was pretty typical of his style. When asked about the way he treated Orson Welles in a previous novel, Ellroy said he trashed him because he never liked him much "...and he's dead... he's not gonna sue me!"

The second half of the book actually came around to a plot, tying things together by slapping the case of serial killer Caryl Chessman into it. It was at this point that I just accepted the writing approach and tried to follow Ellroy's path. It did seem to come together a little at that point with a finish line to focus on.

I rate "Widespread Panic" two stars. If you are familiar with and savor Ellroy's body of work you may appreciate it.

Thank you to Knopf Doubleday Publishing and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Ellroy. Great LA Noir. Recommend to LA 50's Noir fans.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ater the triumphs of BLOOD'S A ROVER and PERFIDIA (and the also entertaining if too-similar-to-its-predecessor THIS STORM), WIDESPREAD PANIC is a significant drop-off in quality for James Ellroy. It's as compulsively readable as his work usually is, but there is an unmistakable feeling that Ellroy is going through the motions with this one.

There are many reasons for this. For one, the book is more or less an expanded version of a mediocre web-only novella Ellroy released back in 2012. Two, Ellroy has already delved into the ups and downs of this book's protagonist and narrator Fred Otash-- he appears in all three books of the Underworld USA trilogy and surfaces at least briefly in WHITE JAZZ. (He also created a far more interesting mostly fictional character based on Otash in Pete Bondurant of the aforementioned trilogy.)

When we finally hear Freddy in his own voice, he sounds...well, like the trolling slang-drenched alliterative authorial voice Ellroy has largely stuck to since WHITE JAZZ. It's the most self-indulgent, unhinged version of that voice Ellroy has ever used, which is saying quite a bit. Even if it makes sense given that this book is largely about the real-life Hollywood scandal rag Confidential, it's just tiresome in this iteration. It's old news. The homophobia, racism and jingoism that permeates it is period-accurate and by all accounts in line with what Otash was like (not to mention 95% of L.A. cops in the 1950s and beyond), but at this rate it's mostly about Ellroy doing his level best to offend everyone he can because it amuses him to do so. Which is boring. Ditto his pathological obsession with skewering Hollywood sacred cows ranging from Nicholas Ray and James Dean to John Wayne. Ellroy isn't morally outraged by the hypocrisy and dirty deeds of movie stars and directors, he simply knows he'll get a reaction. Some of the stars' scandals and proclivities he highlights have been well-documented and will surprise nobody, others are made up out of whole cloth. (Which is fine, but it's worth noting the intent of such embellishment.)

Freddy is also old news: Not in the sense that he's been in other Ellroy books, but that he's another rogue cop turned PI running extortion and blackmail rackets who has--get this--hangups about murdered women. It's the most done to death trope in all of Ellroy's work, and in this iteration there's none of the pathos present in past versions of this story. He does little to explore the humanity of the killers' victims. Though, in fairness, WIDESPREAD PANIC is at its most compelling in the stretches where the killer plotline is most prominent.

It's hard for me to review this objectively--not because I dislike Ellroy, but quite the opposite. The L.A. Quartet and Underworld USA series are both masterworks, in aggregate and as individual volumes. (The Second L.A. Quartet, when it's finished, may be another.) But WIDESPREAD PANIC is like hearing an ace musician play a hit song out of tune, or in the wrong key. It veers dangerously close to self-parody.

[Sasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one for me, I’m afraid. The whole thing felt a bit pointless.
The first main structural concept is that the protagonist, Freddy Otash, is dead and in purgatory. He must write his memoir to stand a chance of moving on. Why or how is never explained; and the concept disappears completely halfway through, so why bother? It adds nothing to the novel.
The second main structural concept is that the prose is written in the alliterative, hyperbolic style of the trashy celebrity magazine which employs Freddy. It’s clever, but it’s incredibly wearing to read over a full-length novel. Also, it distances the reader from identification with Freddy, even though it’s in the first person and the reader’s understanding of his thoughts and actions is invited.
There are two main narrative arcs, neither of which are coherent or satisfying, and there’s no real link between them. They seem more suited to two separate novellas than a single novel.
The plots are driven by the premise that every Hollywood star of the 1950s was either sexually depraved, addicted to drugs, prostituting themselves, engaged in criminal activity, or all of the above. I’m sure there was plenty of misbehaviour around but the breadth and depth written here became very distasteful very quickly.
In short, a victory of style over substance.

[Makis Dionis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Τυποι του σινεμα. Μουτρωμενοι ανατρεπτικοι.
Κρυφοι γαμηστρώνες καιγαματες φωλιες αεροσυνοδών - κολ γκερλ.

Και η υπεροχη Τζέινι Μπλέιν νεκρή

Το L.A. φλεγεται στα 50ς κ το Hollywood πρωταγωνιστει κ σε αυτο το τεραιν
Αγκαζάρει κομμουνια, χαφιέδες του FBI, ιστορίες συνωμοσίας σε ενα εκρεικτικο μείγμα δυσωδιας

Ο προφήτης Φρεντ Ότας, σαν μικρόβιο κ σαν μεσσίας τα βγάζει όλα στη φόρα, σε περιπτωση που νοιάζει καποιον
Ιδιωτικός ντετεκτιβ, πρώην μπάτσος, εκβιαστής , νταβατζής , το ίδιο το περιοδικο "Confidential" , σολάρει
Τρομερος ρυθμος , συνεχόμενα απερκατ για το σαπίλα της λάμψης

Δεν μένει τιποτα αθωο κ αμόλυντο

Και η υπεροχη Τζέινι Μπλέιν νεκρή. Το τευλευταιο που θα ήθελε να συμβει , εχει ήδη συμβεί

[Jason Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s Ellroy, and he gives exactly what you came for. This was a brisk read by his standards, and I enjoyed it, but didn’t get the odd “Purgatory Confession” conceit, which he abandons halfway through.

A good time, but I’d have rather he written the third book of his second LA Quartet.

[Kostas Kyriakopoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Παραληρηματική, ασθματική, εξουθενωτική γραφή. Ο γνωστός Φρέντι Ότας, υπαρκτό πρόσωπο με τις πιο μαύρες περγαμηνές στην αστυνομία του Λος Άντζελες, στη διεστραμμένη πλευρά του μεταπολεμικού χολιγουντιανού φεγγαριού. Ανώμαλοι κάθε είδους, ομοφυλόφιλοι, πουτάνες, διαστροφές στα πίσω καθίσματα νταβατζίδικων αυτοκίνητων με τις αναρτήσεις τους να ταρακουνιούνται στα σκοτάδια και πάει λέγοντας. Απ’ ευθείας σύνδεση με ό,τι κρύβει κάποιος στην πιο σκοτεινή γωνιά του διάσημου κεφαλιού του αλλά και μέσα στα εσώρουχά του. Περιοχή του ανθρωπίνου σώματος, με την οποία ο Ellroy έχει σχεδόν διαρκή σύνδεση στις περισσότερες από τις μισές σελίδες του «Πανικού».
Ο πρώην πεζοναύτης Ότας, εν ενεργεία αστυνομικός που χάνει την ιδιότητά του μετά από τη δολοφονία ενός, επίσης αστυνομικού, μετατρέπεται με φρενήρη ρυθμό στον ιδιωτικό ντετέκτιβ – φόβο και τρόμο των celebrities της δεκαετίας του ’50. Αντικομουνισμός, μακαρθισμός, διώξεις, φιλορωσικές γιάφκες και κατασκοπευτικά γκρουπούσκουλα ακόμα και στις πιο απίθανες γωνιές της showbiz Μέκκας του καπιταλισμού. Ο Ότας, συνεργάτης της δημοσιογραφικής κλειδαρότρυπας της εποχής, του περιοδικού Confidential, διαπρέπει: «To Confidential ήταν προάγγελος του ίντερνετ, όπως ήταν αυτό στα πρώτα χρόνια του. Τα κουτσομπολιά που σερβίραμε με το σωρό ήταν αληθινά, τόσο που σ’ αηδίαζαν».
Ο κόσμος του Ότας πνιγμένος στη διαφθορά, στα ναρκωτικά. Ο ίδιος χρειάζεται σαν οξυγόνο τις Dexetrines του -κάτι σαν μεθαμφεταμίνες- και το Old Crow ουίσκι του. Δίπλα του παρελαύνουν ντυμένοι τα ρούχα της διαστροφής, και όχι μόνο, η Ελίζαμπεθ Τέηλορ, ο Τζόνι Ρέι, ο Τζακ Κένεντι, ο Τζέιμς Ντιν, η Μέρυλιν Μονρόε, ο Μάρλον Μπράντο και πολλοί άλλοι με μικρότερους ρόλους στην καταστροφική διαδρομή της κατάρρευσης, ηθικής και σεξουαλικής, εγκληματικά διαστροφικής.
Ο Ellroy είναι δύσκολος συγγραφέας, το γνωρίζουμε. Τα βιβλία του δεν είναι, ποτέ δεν ήταν, για ανάγνωση στο Μετρό. Τώρα, όμως, στα 72 του χρόνια πάει ακόμα παρακάτω ό,τι έχει ξεκινήσει με τα τελευταία του, το Perfidia και τη Θύελλα. Ο λόγος του παραληρεί αναψοκοκκινισμένος. Αίμα, βία, τρομακτικοί τραμπουκισμοί, ακραίος κυνισμός, λάσπη, διαφθορά. Και η φρενιασμένη αφήγηση, «σαν έχεις πιει ένα λίτρο εσπρέσο», έγραψε το Times Literary Supplement. Επιφωνήματα, ηχολαλίες, σχιζοφρενικές λεξιπλασίες, χαοτική ονοματολογία με παρατσούκλια, που πριν από τον αναγνώστη έχουν παρασύρει και τους εν Ελλάδι συντελεστές του βιβλίου. Ναι, αυτός ο «Πανικός» του Ellroy διαβάζεται σαν να έχεις πιει ένα λίτρο εσπρέσο ενώ αφήνει την αίσθηση ότι έχει γραφτεί πίνοντας πολλά περισσότερα. Και όχι κατ’ ανάγκην καφέ…

[Lawrence Sordo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ellroy is a phenomenon. I approached Widespread Panic with misgivings as I disliked Perfidia and found This Storm almost unreadable. Fortunately Widespread Panic is stunning and wondrous. It’s only April but I can’t see anything coming close to this as my book of the year.
The Cold Six Thousand took several attempts to get into with its innovative spare staccato style but turned out to be his best novel so far. Widespread Panic attempts something similar and new by presenting a story which at its heart is about ‘50s Hollywood scandals written in the style of infamous magazine, Confidential. I’ll admit the incessant alliteration and inventive slurs get on your nerves at first but it soon feels normal and suits the storyline perfectly.
It’s probably Ellroy’s finest achievement as a novelist.
Widespread Panic is written as the real Freddy Otash, the discredited cop who carved out a career selling scandal to Confidential magazine.
In 2012, Ellroy published a novella called Shakedown: Freddy Otash Confesses which was revealing and enjoyable. Widespread Panic has expanded and refined it into a stunning novel that obliterates the myth of the glamour of Hollywood . Ellroy is referenced as one of his own characters as Otash retells an anecdote about Ellroy wanting to make a TV series about his life. Hope it’s true and he manages to pull it off. It won’t be difficult once Widespread Panic hits the stores. If Mad Men was huge, then with the right casting this ought to be even more popular. HBO should snap it up.

Thanks to NetGalley for this review copy.

[Steve Essick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hooray ! Everybody’s favorite purveyor of perv crime fiction, James Ellroy, is back with the sleazily seditious #Widespread Panic. It’s the 50’s and Freddy Otash, is going to tell all in exchange for an early release from the Crowbar Hotel. And does Otash have dirt to disseminate, for he’s an ex-cop who went on to pimp , strong arm, and write for Hollywood’s scummiest tabloid magazine, Confidential. Ellroy in the guise of Otash goes on to slander just about anyone who was famous or infamous in that glorious era. #WidespreadPanic is a book not necessarily read for it’s story, but for the verisimilitude of it’s vernacular. Have a ball kiddies.

[Frédéric · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s no plot to speak of for 2/3rd of the book. It’s mainly Confidential trash going nowhere in particular. The perv and smut stories are shockingly fun at first until they’re nauseating by way of repetition.
The last tier is murder driven with semblance of a plot but Ellroy’s done it already and better. That’s 2 *.
Style is glorious though, which justifies the third *.


Ellroy fans should like this one but I suspect they won’t get out of their socks. As for the others I strongly suggest they read the L.A. quartet instead

[Matt Brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ellroy doing Ellroy almost, but not quite, to the point of parody. Wild.

[Βάιος Παπαδόπουλος · Rating 5 out of 5]

Δεν ξέρω αν είναι το καλύτερο βιβλίο του James Ellroy, σίγουρα όμως το πιο διασκεδαστικό!

[John McKenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Ellroy, is writing at the top of his L.A. noir game, as he details the sins of Fred Otash, the “Scandal Rag Scoundrel” and “undisputed autocrat of abusive alliteration.” In the novel—as in real life—Otash dies in 1992. Since then, he’s been locked away in cell 2607 of the Penance Penitentiary, where he suffers constantly at the hands of those whom he slandered or otherwise hurt in real life, as they drop by his cell with electric cattle prods. But now, as the novel begins, Freddy O’s been offered a deal . . . confess all of your sins in exchange for being released from Purgatory. It’s the proverbial ‘get out of jail free’ card and Otash goes to work at once, holding nothing back, nor leaving anything out.
The result is vintage Ellroy as the confessions and the capers start early, last long and never end. Beginning in 1950, Otash goes from being a crooked LAPD cop to an even more disreputable Private Investigator who’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. And what he wants is sleaze, as he dishes the dirt for his other gig . . . gossip columnist for Confidential, a lurid, libelous and licentious morally corrupt rag that exposes communist party members, interracial relationships and the goings-on after dark of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities. No one is safe and no one is spared from burglaries, illegal wiretaps or stalkings as Freddy O. creeps, crawls and slithers his way into the most intimate and sordid details of celebrity lives, then publicly exposes them. Rock Hudson, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Nick Adams, Jack Kennedy and the infamous ‘Red Light Bandit’ and stone cold killer Caryl Chessman—as well as LAPD Chief William H. Parker and many others are all featured in this late night romp down the seamy side of the street as James Ellroy puts his incredible writing talent on full display for all noir enthusiasts to read and enjoy. For those who do, it’ll be one of 2021s most memorable!

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s James Ellroy, and he fucking delivers.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morose delectation. That seems to be the theme of crime writer James Ellroy's life. In 1958, his mother Geneva, about whom he endlessly fantasized, was murdered; and ever since Ellroy has been in and out of his "dark laces." His novel Widespread Panic is no exception. The book is dedicated to two woman, one of whom was actress Lois Nettleton, who is a character in the book. Toward the end, narrator Freddy Otash writes:

She [Lois Nettleton] found me because she needed me and sensed my susceptibility and rage for romance. She's discarded me twice now. She sees me as a [Caryl] Chessman casualty, as I see her. She knows that I am love-struck in a way that careerist-artists are not. I torch for her as she does not torch for me. She's unfit to live a squarejohn life. So am I. I'd try it with her. She won't try it with me.

That strikes me as a pretty naked admission.

Ellroy's novel is set in the Los Angeles in the 1950s when William Parker was head of the Los Angeles Police Department. Also entering the tale are the young Jack Kennedy; convicted murderer Caryl Chessman; actors James Dean, Natalie Wood, Rock Hudson, and Sal Mineo; and the publisher of Confidential magazine.

[Joe Kraus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freddie Otash is finis. He’s fading in and out of focus. He’s finking, feeding the straight alte kockers the stuff of their fetishes.

That’s the start of this, at least. Otash declares there are only two things he wouldn’t do as part of his sordid work extorting, strong-arming, and setting up celebrities and truly sick pervo rapist-killers: kill someone himself and work for the commies.

He’ll admit to having done both, multiple times, before the novel is a third of the way over.

It’s been an ugly life, Freddie admits in those opening pages, and he’s sharing some of high-low-lights to the other aged Hollywood types at his favorite diner. Then, a bite of deli goes down the wrong pipe, his heart clenches up, and it’s a heart attack, stroke, or something. He’s in and out over the next week or two, coming to consciousness in the late 1990s to set up his narrative, but mostly he’s lost in the past, lost in an L.A. that glitters on the screen and begrimes anyone who comes near it in real life.

What begins as confession, then, morphs into the stream-of-corruption patois that Ellroy has mastered. It’s colored by the breathless prose style of Confidential magazine, an organ that pops up throughout Ellroy’s work. (Organs pop up often in his work, but that’s another matter.)

I’ll admit, I think it’s a kind of prose magic. I listen to Ellroy’s writing like I’m listening to jazz – and that’s true whether I’m doing an audiobook, as here, or a paper copy. He does things with word choice and rhythm that seems Coltrane-esque. You get flurries of nouns; you get nouns compelled into verbs. You get metaphors pushed to absurd limits. Sure, he can write an ordinary sentence, and he often does, but that just feels like setting the background tempo. After that he flies off on solos that no one else can match.

So, I’m a sucker for all things Ellroy. That’s even as I acknowledge the often-horrifying politics of his pieces. This is right-wing snuff fantasy stuff. That current canard that Democrats are behind child sex-trafficking rings? Ellroy gives the same sort of dirt. Here, we have JFK covering up a one-night stand who’s been dumped dead beside the road. We have Marlon Brando giving blow jobs while he’s pushing simpering liberal politics. We have John Wayne with a thing for dressing in women’s clothes, and Elizabeth Taylor picking up second-rate detectives. And, more centrally, there’s a young James Dean who, notwithstanding his bisexual honeypot extortion routines, is perpetrating breaking-and-entry jobs as “research” for Rebel Without a Cause.

I can’t say whether Ellroy believes all that he insinuates – or even says outright – but it’s clear he’s plumbing an ugliness that goes deeper than even he can see. This is a man who, in his real teenage life, had to deal with the unsolved murder of his mother. This is a man who believes all humans are depraved. A man who, as he’s shown in his larger and more ambitious L.A. Quartet(s) and American trilogies believes that our contemporary culture was authored not by enlightened men and women of “the greatest generation,” but by liars, killers, and con-artists. His history hasn’t just been written by the victors but rather by the ghost writers they’ve hired to whitewash the affair.

His heroes are the hesitantly murderous front-line killers and strongarm goons who’ve done the dirty work and then been written out of those stories. They’ve seen and performed the hurting, and then they find their handlers want nothing more to do with them.

It’s a powerful place to stand. This is ultimately an interrogation of “America” as a shining city on the hill, with the perpetual conclusion that, wild as the ride might be, we’ve made a mess of this fresh green (occasionally bitten off) breast of the new world.

There is a plot here, which is more than I can sometimes admit getting out of an Ellroy novel. After a lot of backstory – perhaps more than half the novel – Freddie falls hard for Lori, a woman who’s determined to see real-life rapist-murderer Caryl Chessman put to death. Lori had a friend torture-raped by the man, a friend she knew from the actor’s studio which makes her friends with the Brandos and James Deans who float in and out.

As the protagonists of L.A. Confidential do, Freddie eventually figures out the web of conspiracy behind Churchill’s crimes. He takes out at least one associate and gathers some of the dirt that seals Churchill’s failure to appeal his death sentence. The girl digs him, then she doesn’t, then she’s gone for reasons that aren’t quite clear. It fits the tune, though, and the larger episode ramps up the energy of the novel as a whole, making the prose sing even more.

It is, in other words, Ellroy in his late-career stride, and that’s a very good thing.

The Ellroy universe is so intertwined, so dependent on having a sense of how his different characters interact, that this one – since it’s outside the various quartets and trilogies – is actually a good place to begin. Beware, though, and don’t drive your Packard pimpmobile anywhere near Ellroyville unless you’re prepared to be shocked and offended.

This is not great literature, but it is literature. And it’s surely a great something.

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

Standard Ellroy, but I was a bit put off by the Confidential rhythm and alliteration of his prose. Ellroy, while brilliant, doesn't seem to have changed or grown, but continually stews on his same obsessions.

[Peter Ackerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I expected the 3rd and final installment of his current trilogy I was happily surprised to see this offering which takes the reader back to Ellroy’s version of the CD 1950s in Los Angeles.

Freddy Otash was an LA cop in Private Eye his reputation still precedes him and whether truth fiction or parts of both Ellroy brings Otash to us through some of the circumstances he likely found himself connected .

What the reader wants more of will depend on how this book sits with said reader. This is only a slight linear tail the Otash saga from start to finish jumps around in time frame , it ebbs and flows like a memory that keeps the reader on his or her figurative toes but still provides a satisfying journey .

Where the author seems to take great delight is in his now classic jarring jive alliterative speak which for me a little of it goes a long way. Still, this title is pure Ellroy. If you love reading him , there is a lot to love here. If you want to start, this book as a standalone might be a good way before jumping in all Ellroy in two longer tones or series. Regardless, as always, this author offers the reader an opportunity to move into another wonderfully literate space and time.

[KOMET · Rating 3 out of 5]

Widespread Panic tells a story taken from a chapter in the life of Freddy Otash, a former Marine and L.A. vice cop later dismissed from the force in the early 1950s under somewhat murky circumstances who goes on to find a niche for himself as a private investigator, a strong arm for a scurrilous celebrity magazine that dishes all the dirt on the private lives of movie stars, and a planter of bugs in the homes of persons of interest to the LAPD (and its infamous chief, William H. Parker), state and federal law enforcement agencies.

In the beginning of the novel, Otash is introduced to the reader as someone who lived a shady, dissolute life, having died in the summer of 1992 in his early 70s. He has been consigned to purgatory and it is from that perch that he shares with the reader his experiences of living in the L.A. of the 1950s with views of the shady side of Hollywood and life in the city's underbelly.

While Widespread Panic was an entertaining novel, it is not one that I am likely to re-read. Its feel was like bubble gum, which at first fresh and tasty, grows stale the longer you chew it.

[Pierluigi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ho un debole per Ellroy … si capisce

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn’t finish it. Not an enjoyable read (for me).