Left of Eden
(Book)

"Left of Eden is a sordid noir set in postwar Hollywood at the moment when everything in the film industry and the country is about to change because of the looming McCarthy witch hunt and the blacklist. Detective Harry Palmer has been kicked off the LAPD Homicide Squad for graft but that gives him just the right credentials to try to foil a badger or blackmail plot against activist actor Jason "Gabby" Gabriel for a supposed liaison with the underaged daughter of his former co-star. Palmer follows a trail of murder and mayhem that exposes the inner workings of the town and includes: one of the biggest studio heads, New York banker-financiers, writers and directors being hounded by the F.B.I., two-fisted union leaders who act like gangsters, actress wannabees living on the edge, the sordid family of a Hollywood starlet, and the most beautiful and desired woman in the town at the moment. Harry becomes friends with Gabby who is about to be called to testify about his politics, falls hard for Gabby's beautiful girlfriend, and must wind his way through the labyrinth of a duplicitous starlet's family as all around him the bodies are dropping and as everyone seems to want to cash in on Gabby's fast-talking personality, whether he is alive or dead"--,Amazon.com.