The highly stylized prose used in the main chapters builds upon the style used in American Tabloid (and, to a certain extent, White Jazz). Flashbacks occur, but only in the present tense memory of the protagonists. Interspersed between many chapters are 'document inserts' reproducing newspaper clippings, letters, and transcripts of telephone calls. Each chapter has a limited third person narrative voice from the point of view of one of the three main characters. The action of the book is completely sequential, as the dates indicate. As in American Tabloid, the chapters are divided into named Parts, and each chapter is numbered and identified by location and date. The Cold Six Thousand has a structure substantially similar to that of American Tabloid. 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. 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. 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. Kennedy's assassination and ensure a consensus: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Edgar Hoover's blessing to 'manage' the investigation into John F. Ward Littell, former FBI agent turned high-powered Mafia lawyer, arrives in Dallas with J. James Ellroy dedicated The Cold Six Thousand ' To BILL STONER.' Specifically, it follows three rogue American law-enforcement officials and their involvement in the turmoil of the 1960s. It is the first sequel to American Tabloid in the Underworld USA Trilogy and continues many of the earlier novel's characters and plotlines. The Cold Six Thousand is a 2001 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. Print ( hardcover & paperback), audio cassette, and audio downloadĦ72 pp (first American edition, hardback)

The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy