SUMMARY:
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.
