Name: Clandestine
Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
ISBN: 9780099558880

James Ellroy

Los Angeles 1951 - Frederick Underhill, an ambitious rookie of the Los Angeles Police Department, wants to become the most celebrated detective of his time. He is also sexually promiscuous. His two drives are brought together by the slaying of Maggie Cadwallader, a lonely woman whom Underhill slept with shortly before her death.

Clandestine

Fred Underhill is a young cop on the rise in Los Angeles in the early 1950's -- a town blinded to its own grime by Hollywood glitter; a society nourished by newspaper lies that wants its heroes all-American and squeaky clean. A chance to lead on a possible serial killing is all it takes to fuel Underhill's reckless ambition - and it propels him into a dangerous alliance with certain mad and unstable elements of the law enforcement hierarchy. When the case implodes with disastrous consequences, it is Fred Underhill who takes the fall. His life is in ruins, his promising future suddenly a dream of the past. And his good and pure love for a crusading woman lawyer has been corrupted and may not survive. But even without the authority of a badge, Fred Underhill knows that his only hope for redemption lies in following the investigation to its grim conclusion. And the Hell to which he has been consigned for his sins is the perfect place to hunt for a killer who hungers but has no soul.

Jan Jackson

Excellent. The authors second book, and - although it’s central character is a cop - it lacks a lot of the Ellroy jive that his later work is renowned for. It moves across America, from L.A. to Wisconsin and back, and is full of nicely observed characters and moments. The only downside is the presence of Lieutenant Dudley Smith. I just can’t be buying into that cod Irish characterisation.

Clandestine

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