The first book of James Ellroy's Underworld Trilogy. Takes the intensely cynical worldview and hard-boiled tone of Ellroy's LA Quartet and applies them to the grander scale of American politics and international intrigue.
Kemper Boyd is a slick, suave FBI agent with a taste for the finer things in life and, as a result, a ravenous appetite for cash. Ward Littell is that rarest of things — an honest, progressive FBI agent with a passion for Civil Rights and taking down the mob. And Peter Bondurant is a massive, frightening, utterly amoral Marine veteran working as a hired goon for Howard Hughes.
Bondurant is tired of procuring drugs and women for Hughes, and Boyd is always looking for fresh money-making angles. So when the opportunity arises for them to latch on with The Mafia in order to take down Fidel Castro and re-open the mob's closed Cuban casinos, Boyd and Bondurant leap at it. And when the CIA wants to start trafficking heroin in order to fund anti-Castro efforts, well, Boyd and Bondurant are more than happy to help and serve as liaisons between the agency and the mob.
Of course, Boyd is stretched a little thin, seeing as he's working for the mob, the FBI, the CIA and the Kennedy brothers. As Boyd and Bondurant get tangled in their increasingly elaborate webs of conspiracy, lies and murder, and Littell gets dragged into the scheming, the stakes grow ever higher, and the three men find themselves with a date in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.
An audio-only adaptation was released in 2023 with a star-studded cast. Pete Bondurant is read by William Forsythe, Ward Littell is read by Shea Whigham and Kemper Boyd is read by Alessandro Nivola
Followed by a direct sequel, The Cold Six Thousand.
This novel contains examples of:
- Amoral Attorney: After Ward is fired from the FBI, he becomes a full-blown mob lawyer.
- Anti-Hero: The best way to describe the main characters.
- Kemper Boyd is a suave FBI agent, but his main concern is helping himself. And if that means playing multiple sides, well, he's more than happy to do so.
- Pete Bondurant is a former Corrupt Cop turned blackmail artist/bodyguard/enforcer for the mob and Howard Hughes.
- Ward Littell is an idealistic FBI agent who quickly is screwed over and becomes a mob lawyer, eventually working against his former ally: Bobby Kennedy.
- Ascended Extra: Pete Bondurant first had a small role in White Jazz.
- Blackmail: A lot of characters bug a lot of hotel rooms in an effort to find compromising material. Entrapping JFK with recordings of him with beautiful women comes up a lot.
- Boom, Headshot!: How Ward kills Kemper.
- CIA Evil, FBI Good: While good is a massive stretch, the FBI (especially under Bobby Kennedy) wants to fight the mob. The CIA is more than happy to help the mob. Especially when it comes to trafficking heroin.
- Closet Gay: Lenny Sands, a stand-up comedian affiliated with the Mob is gay, but must hide it because of the Mob's homophobia. Ward uses this, alongside Lenny's murder of Icepick Tony to blackmail Lenny into becoming an informant.
- Continuity Nod: David Klein is mentioned by Lenny Sands when Pete interrogates him into working for Hush-Hush.
- Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: As noted in the intro, Boyd eventually worms his way into work with the CIA, FBI, the Mafia and the Kennedy brothers. It goes very badly for him, and he ends up dead as a result of his machinations.
- Face–Heel Turn: Ward begins the novel as an idealistic FBI agent with with a hatred for organized crime and admiration for Bobby Kennedy. By the end of the novel not only is he working with the same people he previously despised, he is more than willing to orchestrate the assassination of JFK.
- Face Death with Dignity: Kemper when facing Ward.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Pete and Kemper.
- Foregone Conclusion: No matter what, Kennedy is assassinated.
- Historical Domain Character: Many. Including J. Edgar Hoover, JFK, RFK, Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Howard Hughes, Moe Dalitz, Jimmy Hoffa, Guy Bannister, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack Ruby.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: J. Edgar Hoover. He actively works against the Kennedy's, even allowing the Kennedy assassination to happen.
- Humiliation Conga: Ward is fired from the FBI, loses his pension, gets blackballed from all potential avenues of employment, his girlfriend leaves him and his daughter severs all contact with him.
- Karmic Thief: Kemper and Pete steal the Mob's heroin after they learn that they're working with Castro. When they are caught, they are forced to kill Kennedy.
- The Mafia: Mob figures Santo Traficante Jr., Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello and John Roselli play significant roles in the novel.
- May–December Romance: Ward is in a relationship with Helen Agee.
- No Honor Among Thieves: As one might expect from Ellroy. The Mafia figures in the book are not without some limited charm and a rough (very rough) code, but mostly they're happy to betray anyone and everyone to get their hands on a little more power and money.
- Odd Friendship: Pete and Ward eventually form a kind of desperate friendship once Ward becomes the mob's go-to lawyer and Kemper starts falling out of favor with the mob and FBI. It's odd because Ward and Pete hated each other for a long time — Kemper had to stop Pete from outright murdering Ward at various points. This continues through the sequel, The Cold Six Thousand, where Pete actually refers to Ward as his "best friend."
- Scrapbook Story: One of Ellroy's favorite tropes, going back to the LA Quartet. Pushed even further in the Underworld Trilogy, beginning with American Tabloid. Ellroy sticks in newspaper headlines, news stories, diary entries and transcripts of conversations between various characters major and minor.
- Sibling Murder: A part of Pete's backstory is that he accidentally killed his brother during a mob hit.
- Self-Made Orphan: After discovering this, Pete's parents committed suicide.
- Social Climber: JFK labels Kemper a social climber behind Kemper's back and mocks Kemper's attempts to ingratiate himself with the Kennedy family.
- Straight Gay: Icepick Tony, a member of the Chicago mob, is deeply in the closet. When a gay club singer/associate finds out, Tony attempts to kill him. It doesn't work out for Tony.
- Trivial Title: The title of the book is a reference to Hush-Hush magazine (made famous in L.A. Confidential), which plays an important role in the first part of the book as the vehicle by which Howard Hughes and the main characters attempt to embarrass JFK. But the extortion plot comes to nothing and is quickly set aside as the novel moves into much grander territory.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The mob sees Kennedy as the ultimate ungrateful bastard — they busted their asses to elect him in 1960 (including stuffing ballot boxes for him in the most important states), and then he abandons the Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs and RFK launches an inquiry into mob activity. This is a big reason they decide to assassinate him.
- Who Shot JFK?: Ward ends up pitching the idea of a JFK assassination to the mob, while Pete and Boyd do most of the planning.
