Brown's Requiem.

JAMES ELLROY

Publication: Avon, 1981, New York

First edition. Author's first book. PBO. Avon 78741. Presentation inscription from the author on the front inside cover, "5/5/83 To: ---- Dig my 1st novel -- the story of one lonely man's partial redemption through a hellish moral stand. Legibly signed by Ellroy." Fine in pictorial wrappers. Fritz Brown is a former LA cop with a drinking problem and a taste for great music. His life is about to change thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes his money for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap. Reopening this case could be Fritz's redemption; all he has to do is make it through a grim, lightless place where evil has no borders; where lies beget lies and death begets death; where there's little tolerance for Bach and deadly arson is a lesser mortal sin. Last but not least, where a P.I.'s interest in the past can turn beautiful music into a song in commemoration for the dead.