L.A. Despair

Legendary noir author John Gilmore takes the reader on a mad, tumultuous all-night drive without remorse or pity, through the high and low life of Hollywood and the City of Angels. This is the true-crime capstone to a celebrated collection of works, a blood-and-semen-soaked noir trail of all-night diners, nightclubs and cheap motels. Gilmore delivers a relentless panorama of sex, violence and death in five raw chronicles of SoCal sickness: Porn legend John Holmes and untouchable LA crime and drug impresario Eddie Nash-the unvarnished story of the sex-and-coke-laced Wonderland murders. Hollywood's fallen angel Barbara Payton-hell-bent on descending from Movie Star Sexpot to the gutters of Heartbreak and Vine. From gorgeous jailbait Sunset Boulevard hooker to San Quentin's gas chamber-the saga of the infamous &quote;Ice Blonde&quote; murderess Barbara Graham. Highway hitchhike-killer Billy Cook unleashes his remorseless hate for the whole human race in one of the 20th century's most grisly crimes. &quote;King of Western Swing&quote; and early TV &quote;Fiddlin' Cowboy&quote; icon Spade Cooley rides a nightmare trail of madness, paranoia and murder. &quote;John Gilmore is one of America's natural-born gifts to literature. His books aren't just inspiring and wicked by-products of genius: they're miracles. … He's the best ever.&quote; — Gary Indiana