James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes (USA 2007)

From the Publisher:
Dig it. A famous musician-cum-draft dodger is plotting the perfect celebrity snatch-his own. An ex-con raging on revenge in High Darktown becomes a cop's worst nightmare. While chasing kidnappers, two cops stumble on an okie town as bloody as the O.K. Corral. A strongarm for Howard Hughes and mobster Mickey Cohen finds himself playing both ends against the middle, all for a murderously magnificent moll. This is L.A., Ellroy style-corrupt cops, goons with guns, rattling roadsters-and all in the staccato rhythm of the streets. Hollywood Nocturnes shows us the seedy side of glamorous Hollywood, laid out like a corpse in the morgue.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes. Vintage Books, ISBN: 0307278794 (June, 2007), 229 p., $12.95.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
Enter the hip-hop hard-edged world of 1950s Los Angeles, James Ellroy-style: cars with fins, starmakers with comeons, and cops with mean streaks as wide as Sunset Strip. In tales that dazzle with unexpected humor and raw brutality, the acclaimed author of L.A. Confidential creates a series of stark, unforgettable snapshots: a swinging sax man is doing repos and plotting a kidnapping -- of himself... cops and mobsters are making rackets an equal-opportunity employer... a tommy gun is shattering windows, bodies, and dreams in High Darktown. Hollywood Nocturnes flashes like a neon sign, capturing the smell of half-burned cigarettes and booze, as the nightside of a dark city comes vividly to life. It's a town where everything changes after the sun goes down: The women turn more sensual, the men predatory, the streets violent, and the American dream sheds its innocence... like a snake shedding its skin.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes. Delta, ISBN: 0385333285 (November, 1998), 295 p., $12.95.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
Dig this: the swinging sax man's doing repos and plotting a kidnapping-of himself; a tommy gun is ripping apart windows, curtains, and bodies in High Darktown; a carhop at Scrivner's is keeping two extremely sweet sugar daddies, Howard Hughes and mobster Mickey Cohen, happy-until the scene turns murderous.

This is the hip-hop hard-edged world of L.A. 1950s style: cars with fins, Commies in closets, starmakers with come-ons, ex-cons with guns, and cops with mean streaks as wide as Sunset Strip.

James Ellroy's bizarre, stark tales dazzle us with their unexpected humor, raw brutality, and slightly lighter-than-usual noir realism. Hollywood Nocturnes is quintessential Ellroy: bluesy, black, and very, very hot.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes. Dell, ISBN: 044022098X (May, 1995), 358 p., $5.50.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
Nocturnes: Short dark riffs, the blues formalized.
James Ellroy, described by the Los Angeles Times: "Developing into one of the great American writers."
Ellroy's L.A. Quartet novels -- The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz -- an epic pop history of a toxic metropolis.
Hollywood Nocturnes: An alternative Ellroy universe, etched less in blood and more in elegiac neon.

Dick Contino: Accordion virtuoso, lounge lizard, Red Scare scapegoat. On a greased slide in '58 L.A.: A show biz fatality begging to happen. Dick Contino's Blues: Half nocturne, half torch song. A blast back to tailfins, dis- ease-free promiscuity, sex killers, Commie-bashing, publicity kidnaps, and B-movie redemption -- an ode to a time when love came cheap.

Nocturnes: Noir set to music.
James Ellroy: America's great noir writer.
Dick Contino: America's kingpin accordion player, then and now. The accordion and noir?
Suspend your disbelief.
Hollywood Nocturnes: The novella Dick Contino's Blues, Ellroy's entire short-story oeuvre, and a few surprises. Dig it, kats and kittens, chix and charlies: This is prime-time Ellroy.

James Ellroy: Hollywood Nocturnes. Otto Penzler Books, ISBN: 1883402549 (April, 1994), 229 p., $20.00.

James Ellroy: Dick Contino's Blues (UK 1994)

From the Publisher:
Dick Contino - 50s accordian player, a star in the making, is destroyed by a draft-dodging scandal. His life is on the skids until he comes up with the idea of resurrecting his career with a fake kidnapping scam.

Meanwhile a serial killer is on the loose in Los Angeles... a killer who is closer to Contino than he suspects - a killer who wants in on the kidnap - for real...

Plus five previously unpublished short stories.

James Ellroy: Dick Contino's Blues. And other Stories. Arrow, ISBN: 0099410117 (February, 1994), 166 p., £5.99.