James Ellroy: Clandestine (USA 2021)

From the Publisher:
In James Ellroy's riveting second novel, an ambitious beat cop is hot on the trail of a serial killer who frequents L.A. dive bars and preys on the fallen women he finds there.

Los Angeles, 1951. For Officer Fred Underhill, the job is all about the wonder, an elusive quality he finds while dealing with the city's drunks, hopheads, gunsels, and burglars. When he's not reveling in the glory of cleaning up the streets, he's on the green or scoring women. But Underhill's ambition and allegiance to the badge get the better of him when a grim opportunity to prove his worth arises. Catching a serial strangler who is snuffing out women would all but ensure his place at the top. As he climbs his way up, the hungry rookie wheels and deals with some of the force's most unscrupulous officers, and when the case goes sideways and fast, the eyes of the very law he serves will be trained on him. Now Underhill's only chance to redeem himself is to pick up the trail of the soulless killer and close the case himself.

James Ellroy: Clandestine. Vintage Books, ISBN: 9780593312223 (February, 2021), 448 p., $17.00.

James Ellroy: Clandestine (UK 2012)

From the Publisher:
Los Angeles 1951 - Frederick Underhill, an ambitious rookie of the Los Angeles Police Department, want 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.

Using his inside knowledge, Underhill gets himself on the case, which is being handled by LA's most fearsome investigator: Lieutenant Dudley Smith. But instead of the celebrity status he was hoping for, Underhill finds himself on the edge of the abyss, his whole life and future about to take a fall.

James Ellroy: Clandestine. Windmill Books, ISBN: 9780099558880 (November, 2012), 352 p., £8.99.

James Ellroy: Clandestine (USA 1999)

From the Publisher:
The L.A. James Ellroy imagines is a living thing - a predator that feeds on human weakness, devouring all and leaving few survivers -- all the more powerful and disturbing for its emotion, honesty and raw atmospheric sting of truth. This is an author who has redetined the American crime novel with an unbroken string of exceptional works -- including LA. Confidential, Brown's Requiem, The Black Dahlia and American Tabloid -- and whose forceful, uncompromising prose startles and roars, and leaves the reader breathless and reeling.

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.

James Ellroy: Clandestine. Harper Paperbacks, ISBN: 0380805294 (February, 1999), 328 p., $12.00.

James Ellroy: Clandestine (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
In the early 1950s, rookie cop Freddy Underhill patrols Los Angeles from Wilshire to Watts, dreaming of making the big bust that will grab headlines and bring him glory. And when an old one night stand is found murdered, Freddy seizes his chance and enters a world of kinky sex and sleazy secrets.

James Ellroy: Clandestine. Avon Books, ISBN: 0380811413 (March, 1997), 342 p., $5.99.

James Ellroy: Clandestine (UK 1996)

From the Publisher:
1951 - Patrolman Frederick Underhill of the Los Angeles Police Department is an ambitious rookie with a dream 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.

Using his inside knowledge, Underhill discovers a likely suspect, and uses the information to buy himself on to the case which is being handled by LA's most fearsome and most unscrupulous pursuer of murder: Lieutenant Dudley Smith. Soon Underhill is an accomplice to Smith's ruthless interrogation techniques. But far from the celebrity he was hoping for, Underhill finds himself on the edge of the abyss, his whole life and future about to take a fall.

James Ellroy: Clandestine. Arrow, ISBN: 0099226227 (October, 1996), 342 p., £5.99.

James Ellroy: Clandestine (USA 1982)

From the Publisher:
MURDER BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
From Wilshire to Watts, ambitious rookie Freddy Underhill patrols L.A. looking for glamour and glory. His dreams of being a hotshot California cop are bigger than the bets he makes on his gold game or the busts of the women he picks up.

So when a flashy lass he knows from a one-night stand is strangled, Underhill sees his chance to grab headlines with a quick collar. Until the clandestine set up to catch the killer breaks open a locked door to kinky sex and sleazy secrets - and murder in smog city closes in on both Underhill's life and career.

James Ellroy: Clandestine. West Coast nights turn deadly for a California cop when the dark side of love is murder. Arrow, ISBN: 0380811413 (December, 1982), 342 p., $2.95.