B>b>From the modern master of noir comes a novel about the king of the 1950s Hollywood underground--a tale of pervasive paranoia filled with communist conspiracies, FBI finks, celebrity smut films, and strange bedfellows./b>/b>br>br>Fred Otash is the man in the know and the man to know in Tinseltown. He operates with two simple rules--he''ll do anything but murder, and he''ll never work with commies. br>br>Fred is a corrupt L.A. cop on the skids. He executed a cop killer named Horvath and it gores him. So Captain Whiskey Bill Parker cans him. Now, Freddie dons an array of new hats--sleazoid private eye, shakedown artist, matchmaker for Rock Hudson, pimp for President John F. Kennedy--and, most notably--the lead tipster and head strongarm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet--and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink and the scurrilous skank on the feckless foibles of misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Freaky Freddy outs them all!br>br>In Widespread Panic we traverse the depths of ''50s L.A. and internalize the inner workings of Confidential. Dig: You''ll go to Burt Lancaster''s lushly appointed torture den. . . You''ll gas on overhyped legend James Dean as Freddy''s chief stooge. . . You''ll be there for Freddy''s ring-a-ding rendezvous with Liz Taylor. . . You''ll be front and center as Freddy runs roughshod over the stars of the silver screen and the demimonde of the Hollywood hills.