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Red Sheet: A Novel
Not yet published
Expected 9 Jun 26Turn to the first page and disavow what you think you know. This is 1960s Los Angeles like you’ve never seen it before, in a daring work of historical fiction from bestselling author of The Enchanters and Widespread Panic.
It’s late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The U.S. prevailed. Attorney General Robert Kennedy fears reprisals from domestic Communist Party members embedded in L.A. He orders a red probe and puts the LAPD on the job.
Freddy Otash is named lead investigator. He encounters commie malfeasance at every turn. He homes in on a red-front trade union. There’s a murder on Halloween night. It links to ex-VP and gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon and possibly two homicides eight years back. Now Freddy is working double he’s commanding the probe and is hired to keep Nixon out of trouble. Meanwhile, integrationist fever is sweeping L.A. and the police department comes under its fire. Ex-cop/lawyer Tom Bradley is running for city council and pushing the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner is along for the ride. And the long-forgotten but still-stunning folk singer Judy Henske is on a collision course with the love of her life, the freewheeling Freddy O.
The stage is set for chaos and Freddy thrives on chaos. Red Sheet is a work of subversive art. It embodies “indigenous American beserk” with a uniquely crazed and brilliant passion.
It’s late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The U.S. prevailed. Attorney General Robert Kennedy fears reprisals from domestic Communist Party members embedded in L.A. He orders a red probe and puts the LAPD on the job.
Freddy Otash is named lead investigator. He encounters commie malfeasance at every turn. He homes in on a red-front trade union. There’s a murder on Halloween night. It links to ex-VP and gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon and possibly two homicides eight years back. Now Freddy is working double he’s commanding the probe and is hired to keep Nixon out of trouble. Meanwhile, integrationist fever is sweeping L.A. and the police department comes under its fire. Ex-cop/lawyer Tom Bradley is running for city council and pushing the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner is along for the ride. And the long-forgotten but still-stunning folk singer Judy Henske is on a collision course with the love of her life, the freewheeling Freddy O.
The stage is set for chaos and Freddy thrives on chaos. Red Sheet is a work of subversive art. It embodies “indigenous American beserk” with a uniquely crazed and brilliant passion.
544 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication June 9, 2026
About the author
James Ellroy
151 books4,319 followersLee 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).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I’m old enough to remember way back in the early 1960s, when Richard Nixon unsuccessfully ran for president against John F. Kennedy, and when JFK and his brother Bobby, as his attorney general, spent about as much time hunting communists as working for civil rights. In 1962 in Los Angeles, when this story begins, anybody as old as I am will read a whole lot of familiar names; Nixon and the Kennedys, of course, but also Tom Bradley (later mayor), Daryl Gates (later LAPD chief), Hugh Hefner, Nixon’s henchmen Haldeman and Erlichman, and even Quincy Jones.
Freddy Otash is detailed to the DA’s office, and he and Gates are tasked with flushing communists out and putting them away. This is ostensibly fallout from the just-passed Cuban Missile Crisis, but it also might just be a bit of distraction from the Kennedys’ relationships with Marilyn Monroe. Nixon’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign for California governor is in the home stretch when Haldeman and Erlichman hire Otash to keep tabs on Nixon after hours, because he’s been acting oddly. Otash may spend a lot of time bombed on booze, uppers and opiates, but he’s excellent at tailing people, illegally entering and searching places, and physically persuading people to cooperate. Who’d have thought that his tailing of Nixon on Halloween night would end up connecting with his commie hunt—and exposing a particularly gruesome murder?
Ellroy’s rat-a-tat style is in full form here, with round-the-clock kaleidoscopic action that makes LA in the Sixties seem strangely attractive, despite its corruption and violence.
Freddy Otash is detailed to the DA’s office, and he and Gates are tasked with flushing communists out and putting them away. This is ostensibly fallout from the just-passed Cuban Missile Crisis, but it also might just be a bit of distraction from the Kennedys’ relationships with Marilyn Monroe. Nixon’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign for California governor is in the home stretch when Haldeman and Erlichman hire Otash to keep tabs on Nixon after hours, because he’s been acting oddly. Otash may spend a lot of time bombed on booze, uppers and opiates, but he’s excellent at tailing people, illegally entering and searching places, and physically persuading people to cooperate. Who’d have thought that his tailing of Nixon on Halloween night would end up connecting with his commie hunt—and exposing a particularly gruesome murder?
Ellroy’s rat-a-tat style is in full form here, with round-the-clock kaleidoscopic action that makes LA in the Sixties seem strangely attractive, despite its corruption and violence.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A gripping, grinning madness that rebuilds American history into its own deep state conspiracy mythology. Counter-counter-counter revolutions pan out into simple cons. Everyone is working an angle and turning state’s evidence if they can.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hurled into the middle of a sprint in the opening page of Red Sheet, with whiplash the reader runs alongside LAPD DA Lieutenant Freddy Otash, our hero-narrator. The country is obsessed with post-Bay of Pigs Communist Red Panic and a pair of bad guys, one black and the other white (coined Salt and Pepper) are terrorizing LA in October, 1962. The police are fully immersed in the search for the mystery duo while Otash tails Ex-VP Richard Nixon who is running for Governor of California. Powerful people expect Tricky Dick to lose the gubernatorial race but still hope to discover dirt on the Republican powerhouse. On Halloween, a murder occurs at a location where Nixon just departed and Otash lashes on to the mystery like a cranked-up junkyard dog.
This is historical fiction told in the back of '61 Cutlass going 80 miles per hour. Alger Hiss, Charles Lindburgh, Hugh Hefner, Richard Nixon, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Eddie Chacon and other household names make regular apperances. The book fields a huge cast and includes a helpful dramatis personae of over fifty characters. After brilliant set pieces establish the story, Otash suspects four boys, born to a Communist women horribly traumatized during the Spanish Civil War, are living in sleeper cells in LA. They are ultra-dangerous and could be anyone. Otash also connects the unsolved death of two women from the 1950s to the murder on Halloween and he's driven down countless dangerous paths in an effort to uncover Commies and connect the killings.
Otash is a fascinating protagonist. He's a methodical detective, capable of studying and fingerprinting a room with precision that borders on savant artistry, but he's also a violent beast who consumes astonishing amounts of drugs and employs a highly flexible moral code. 1960s nomenclature adds authenticity as Freddy writes real reports to his bosses but jive reports for public consumption. Scram, bop, stiffs, malts, hip, square, jazzed, caper, drift, and dig work into sharp prose without every feeling cheesy or forced. Fast talk and pace slightly dampens the intense violence in the story.
Red Sheet will be loved by fans of Quentin Tarantino films and those who enjoy Hunter S. Thompson level insanity. It also comes highly recommended to readers of Colson Whitehead as Ellroy’s slick prose matches his in many ways.
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for a review copy.
This is historical fiction told in the back of '61 Cutlass going 80 miles per hour. Alger Hiss, Charles Lindburgh, Hugh Hefner, Richard Nixon, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Eddie Chacon and other household names make regular apperances. The book fields a huge cast and includes a helpful dramatis personae of over fifty characters. After brilliant set pieces establish the story, Otash suspects four boys, born to a Communist women horribly traumatized during the Spanish Civil War, are living in sleeper cells in LA. They are ultra-dangerous and could be anyone. Otash also connects the unsolved death of two women from the 1950s to the murder on Halloween and he's driven down countless dangerous paths in an effort to uncover Commies and connect the killings.
Otash is a fascinating protagonist. He's a methodical detective, capable of studying and fingerprinting a room with precision that borders on savant artistry, but he's also a violent beast who consumes astonishing amounts of drugs and employs a highly flexible moral code. 1960s nomenclature adds authenticity as Freddy writes real reports to his bosses but jive reports for public consumption. Scram, bop, stiffs, malts, hip, square, jazzed, caper, drift, and dig work into sharp prose without every feeling cheesy or forced. Fast talk and pace slightly dampens the intense violence in the story.
Red Sheet will be loved by fans of Quentin Tarantino films and those who enjoy Hunter S. Thompson level insanity. It also comes highly recommended to readers of Colson Whitehead as Ellroy’s slick prose matches his in many ways.
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for a review copy.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews