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"The Big Nowhere" by James Ellroy

The Big Nowhere is the second novel in writer James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, a cycle of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. It was originally published in 1988.

What begins in this novel as two separate tales eventually twists together into one, centered around the efforts of a doomed LA Sheriff's Deputy to capture a brutal sex murderer while serving, somewhat reluctantly, as a decoy for a set-up to catch Communists in Hollywood. This young deputy, Danny Upshaw, finds himself on a ride that will force him to confront secrets he has kept his whole life, even from himself. Two other major characters, a disgraced former cop now working for both Howard Hughes and Mickey Cohen, and an ambitious LAPD lieutenant involved in a child custody case, try with varying success to do the right things in an environment of deception, paranoia and brutality.

The story begins on New Year's Eve as 1949 turned to 1950, and creates a vivid portrait of Los Angeles during that era, from the be-bop emitting from the jazz clubs on Central Avenue to the union battles facing the Hollywood studios. The entire story takes place in the aftermath of the notorious Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the resultant Zoot Suit Riots, an event that roiled LA for years.

Ellroy's spin on the story might not be entirely factual, but it ties the diverse strands of this wild story together. While the novel mocks opportunistic Red-baiting as a scam that benefited political careers and the fortunes of movie studio executives and mobsters, Ellroy is no easier on the film colony's Communists and fellow travellers, whom he depicts as decadent hypocrites, easily compromised into "naming names" in an effort to hide their own dirty secrets. As with most of Ellroy's fiction, he liberally employs the brutal slang of the times. Gays are "fruits," "homos," "nances"; blacks are "boogies" and "jigs" and their neighborhoods are all Darktown. The Big Nowhere is, in fact, a feast of vernacular, and Ellroy is brilliant at capturing the nuances of dialogue that denote class, race, and mindset.

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