January '42. L.A. reels behind the shock of Pearl Harbor. Local Japanese residents are rounded up and slammed behind bars. Massive thunderstorms hit the city. A body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops tag it a routine dead-man job. They're wrong. It's an early-warning signal of Chaos. There's a murderous fire and a gold heist. There's Fifth Column treason on American soil. There are homegrown Nazis, Commies, and race racketeers. It's populism ascendant. There's two dead cops in a dive off the jazz-club strip. And three men and one woman have a hot date with history. Elmer Jackson is a corrupt Vice cop. He's a flesh peddler and a bagman for the L.A. Chief of Police. Hideo Ashida is a crime-lab whiz, lashed by anti-Japanese rage. Dudley Smith is PD hardnose working Army Intelligence. He's gone rogue and gone all-the-way fascist. Joan Conville was born rogue. She's a defrocked Navy lieutenant and a war profiteer to her core. L.A. '42. Homefront madness. Wartime inferno-- This Storm is James Ellroy's most audacious novel yet. It is by turns savage, tender, elegiac. It lays bare and celebrates crazed Americans of all stripes. It is a masterpiece. Praise for James Ellroy: “One of the great American writers of our time.” — Los Angeles Times “Ask me to name the best living novelist who’s fierce, brave, funny, scatological, beautiful, convoluted, and paranoid . . . and it becomes simple: James Ellroy. If insanity illuminated by highly dangerous strokes of literary lightning is your thing, then Ellroy’s your man.” —Stephen King “James Ellroy is the American Dostoevsky.” —Joyce Carol Oates JAMES ELLROY was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's A Rover , and the L.A. Quartet novels: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L. A. Confidential, and White Jazz. He lives in Colorado. 1 Elmer Jackson (Los Angeles, 9:30 P.M., 12/31/41)   Stakeout. It’s a sit-and-wait job. Some hot-prowl burglar/rape-o’s out creep­ing. He’s Tommy Glennon, recent Quentin grad. He’s notched five 459/sodomies since Pearl Harbor. Happy fucking New Year. Three-man stakeout. Two parked cars. 24th and Normandie. Sit and wait. Endure bugs-up-your-ass ennui. The rain. Plus war-blackout regulations. Drawn shades, doused streetlamps. Bum visibility. It’s a stag hunt. The PD worked that way. Four victims mugshot-ID’d Tommy. The Chief and Dudley Smith conferred. They called it. Per always: perv shit on women mandates DEATH. Elmer gargled Old Crow. He had the front-house car. Mike Breuning and Dick Carlisle had the alley. Tommy had the crib cased. Two leggy sisters lived there. Lockstep surveillance locked down the gestalt. Central Burglary tailed Tommy a week running. Elmer moved the sisters out and moved his leggy girlfriend in. She had the legs and the stones for the job. Ellen Drew. His part -time girlfriend and part -time Paramount star­let. Ellen glommed raves in If I Were King and went pffft. She part- time whored for Elmer and his part -time girlfriend. Brenda Allen. Part -time squeeze of Chief Jack Horrall. It’s who you know and who you blow. Call-Me-Jack set up the bait gig. Elmer scoped the house. Upstairs lights gleamed. Ellen cracked the shades to spotlight her gams. It violated blackout regs and lit her legs gooooood. Tommy G. was a leg man. Elmer read his Quentin file and glommed the gestalt. Thomas Malcolm Glennon/white male American/DOB 8/19/16. Preston Reform School and Quentin. Tight with pachucos and Four Families tong men. Fireworks popped somewhere north. The rain drenched the sparks and killed the effect. “It’s who you know.” Elmer knew Dudley and Call-Me-Jack. Thus, this shit job. Mike B. and Dick C. were Dudley’s strongarm goons. Dud got the night off. Some unknown geek shivved him three days ago. Elmer yawned. Elmer futzed with his two-way radio. Police calls spritzed. Niggertown 211/Happytime Liquor/prowl cars at scene. Dope roust at Club Zombie. Mexi coon rumble, 84th and Avalon. Zoot-suit beaners ex -cape. Elmer yawned. Elmer skimmed the dial. He hit a civilian band and got lucky. The PD’s New Year’s bash warbled. It’s live from City Hall. It features Count Basie’s Band. The Detec­tive Bureau muster room’s rigged with radio mikes. The Count’s at the keyboard. There’s Lester Young’s sax. Here’s the inside tattle. Two bluesuits popped the Count with reef­ers. Jack Horrall caught wind and tossed the pitch. Your call, Count. Six months honor farm or a one-night engagement? Rain slammed the car. Said rain outslammed Count Basie. Elmer skimmed to Band 3. He caught an open line to Breuning and Carlisle. “Know” and “blow.” Maladroit Mike and Dipshit Dick. This jive New Year’s Eve. What good’s your insider-cop status? He loved Headquarters Vice. It dispensed yuks and served to scotch his call-biz competiton. Then the fucking Japs bombe