Author | James Ellroy |
---|---|
Cover artist | Jacket design by Chip Kidd Front-of-jacket photograph by Mell Kilpatrick |
Language | English |
Series | Underworld USA Trilogy |
Genre | Novel, crime fiction |
Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
Publication date | May 8, 2001 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback), audio cassette, and audio download |
Pages | 672 pp (first American edition, hardback) |
ISBN | 0-679-40392-2 (first American edition, hardback) |
OCLC | 46867617 |
Preceded by | American Tabloid |
Followed by | Blood's a Rover |
The Cold Six Thousand is a 2001 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. It is the first sequel to American Tabloid in the Underworld USA Trilogy and continues many of the earlier novel's characters and plotlines. Specifically, it follows three rogue American law-enforcement officials and their involvement in the turmoil of the 1960s.
Ward Littell, former FBI agent turned high-powered Mafia lawyer, arrives in Dallas with J. Edgar Hoover's blessing to "manage" the investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination and ensure a consensus: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Pete Bondurant, whom Littell once arrested, but now is an uneasy friend and partner, is a veteran of the CIA's war against Fidel Castro and now the point-man for the Mafia's Las Vegas operations. Wayne Tedrow Jr., a US Army veteran and Las Vegas Police Department officer, is paid six thousand dollars to fly to Dallas and murder Wendell Durfee, a black pimp who has offended the casinos, and is thus thrust into the assassination's aftermath. As the tension over race relations and the Vietnam War builds and explodes throughout the 1960s, all three become involved in plots to kill Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
The Cold Six Thousand has a structure substantially similar to that of American Tabloid. As in American Tabloid, the chapters are divided into named Parts, and each chapter is numbered and identified by location and date. The action of the book is completely sequential, as the dates indicate. Each chapter has a limited third person narrative voice from the point of view of one of the three main characters. Interspersed between many chapters are "document inserts" reproducing newspaper clippings, letters, and transcripts of telephone calls. Flashbacks occur, but only in the present tense memory of the protagonists.
The highly stylized prose used in the main chapters builds upon the style used in American Tabloid (and, to a certain extent, White Jazz ). Of the novel's style, Ellroy noted:
The style I developed for The Cold Six Thousand is a direct, shorter-rather-than-longer sentence style that's declarative and ugly and right there, punching you in the nards. It was appropriate for that book, and that book only, because it's the 1960s. It's largely the story of reactionaries in America during that time, largely a novel of racism and thus the racial invective, and the overall bluntness and ugliness of the language. [1]
In 2002, Bruce Willis optioned the rights to produce and star in a TV miniseries based on American Tabloid and The Cold Six-Thousand. [2] Willis's option expired before production began.
In 2008, HBO and Tom Hanks's production company, Playtone, were developing Tabloid and Six Thousand for either a mini-series or ongoing series. [3] Screenwriter Kirk Ellis was said to be drafting a screenplay for the potential series. [4]
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. The motorcade rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead about 30 minutes after the shooting; Connally was also wounded in the attack but recovered. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was hastily sworn in as president two hours and eight minutes later aboard Air Force One at Dallas Love Field.
American Tabloid is a 1995 novel by James Ellroy that chronicles the events surrounding three rogue American law enforcement officers from November 22, 1958, through November 22, 1963. Each becomes entangled in a web of interconnecting associations between the FBI, the CIA, and the Mafia, which eventually leads to their collective involvement in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).
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Carlos Joseph Marcello ;[Mor-sel-lo] born Calogero Minacore ; February 6, 1910 – March 3, 1993) was an Italian-American crime boss of the New Orleans crime family from 1947 to 1983.
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Tamerlane Lincoln Kennedy is an American former professional football player who was a offensive tackle who played in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Washington Huskies, and was recognized as a unanimous All-American in 1992.
The Underworld USA Trilogy is the collective name given to three novels by American crime author James Ellroy: American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001), and Blood's a Rover (2009).
The assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent conspiracy theories surrounding it have been discussed, referenced, or recreated in popular culture numerous times.
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11/22/63 is a novel by American author Stephen King about a time traveler who attempts to prevent the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on November 22, 1963. It is the 60th book published by Stephen King, his 49th novel and the 42nd under his own name. The novel required considerable research to accurately portray the late 1950s and early 1960s. King commented on the amount of research it required, saying "I've never tried to write anything like this before. It was really strange at first, like breaking in a new pair of shoes."
Fred Otash was a Los Angeles police officer, private investigator, author, and a WWII Marine veteran, who became known as a Hollywood fixer, while operating as its "most infamous" private detective; he is most remembered as "the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character Jake Gittes in the film, Chinatown. He was interviewed numerous times in the media, including in 1957 by Mike Wallace, an interview that can be viewed online via the University of Texas.
Perfidia is a historical romance and crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Published in 2014, it is the first novel in the second L.A. Quartet, referring to his four prior novels from the first L.A. Quartet. Perfidia was released September 9, 2014. A Waterstones exclusive limited edition of Perfidia was released September 11, 2014, and includes an essay by Ellroy himself titled "Ellroy's History – Then and Now." The title, Perfidia, is Italian for the word perfidy, and is also the name of the big band song, Perfidia.
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