Brown's Requiem »

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. quartet — The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential and White Jazz — were international bestsellers. American Tabloid was Time's Novel of the Year in 1995; his memoir My Dark Places was Time's Best Book and a New York Times Notable book for 1996. His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book for 2001. He lives on the coast of California.

Fritz Brown's L.A.—and his life—are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorales sung for the dead. A less-than-spotless former cop with a drinking problem—a private eye-cum-repo man with a taste for great music—he has been known to wallow in the grime beneath the Hollywood glitter. But Fritz Brown's life is about to change, thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes too much cash for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap. Reopening this cas could be Fritz's redemption; his welcome back to a moral world and his path to a pure and perfect love. But to get there, he must make it through a grim, lightless place where evil has no national borders; where lies beget lies and death begets death; where there's little tolerance for Bach or Beethoven and deadly arson is a lesser mortal sin; and where a p.i.'s unhealthy interest in the past can turn beautiful music into funeral dirge.

Miami Herald

He is a major talent.