L.A. Confidential

In the tradition of Raymond Chandler's crime fiction comes this story of three tortured souls in the 1950s LAPD: a clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, his colleague who busts movie stars for payoffs from a sleazy magazine; and a detective haunted by the sight of his mother's murder. Intensity mounts as the novel's various plots intertwine more and more tightly, yet the narrative never veers too far from its core theme of cops competing with crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent.