Brown's Requiem - James Ellroy

Fritz Brown's L.A. -- and his life -- are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorals 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 ben 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 case 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 leis beget lies and death begets death; where there's little tolerance for Bach of 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 a funeral dirge.