John Gilmore 
L.A. Despair 

Legendary noir author John Gilmore takes the reader on a mad, tumultuous all-night drive without remorse or pity, through the high and low life of Hollywood and the City of Angels. This is the true-crime capstone to a celebrated collection of works, a blood-and-semen-soaked noir trail of all-night diners, nightclubs and cheap motels. Gilmore delivers a relentless panorama of sex, violence and death in five raw chronicles of So Cal sickness: Porn legend John Holmes and untouchable LA crime and drug impresario Eddie Nash-the unvarnished story of the sex-and-coke-laced Wonderland murders. Hollywood’s fallen angel Barbara Payton-hell-bent on descending from Movie Star Sexpot to the gutters of Heartbreak and Vine. From gorgeous jailbait Sunset Boulevard hooker to San Quentin’s gas chamber-the saga of the infamous "Ice Blonde" murderess Barbara Graham. Highway hitchhike-killer Billy Cook unleashes his remorseless hate for the whole human race in one of the 20th century’s most grisly crimes. "King of Western Swing" and early TV "Fiddlin’ Cowboy" icon Spade Cooley rides a nightmare trail of madness, paranoia and murder. "John Gilmore is one of America’s natural-born gifts to literature. His books aren’t just inspiring and wicked by-products of genius: they’re miracles. . . . He’s the best ever." – Gary Indiana