Author James Ellroy kicks off his latest opus, The Enchanters, with antihero Fred Otash, and his law enforcement buddies on the Hat Squad, brutalizing a kidnapping suspect, and then tossing him off an 80-foot cliff into traffic on the Pasadena Freeway below. That's just the first two pages of Ellroy's densely plotted, staccato-narrated thrill-ride set in the hot-box Hollywood summer of 1962. Populated by real-world luminaries, has-beens, and wannabes, the Tinseltown of The Enchanters is a Confidential Magazine-inspired den of iniquity where everyone is constantly scheming, spying, lying, and conspiring to gain or maintain the one thing that truly matters: power. There are few good guys (or gals) here, and fewer still by the end of the novel. 

If you're not already familiar with Fred Otash, then you obviously haven't read Ellroy's 2021 novel, Widespread Panic, one of my ten favorite books of that year. Consider The Enchanters a sequel to Widespread Panic, which first introduced me to drug-addicted, dirty-trickster Otash.* An ex-LAPD/private eye/hired goon/studio fixer/agent provocateur, Otash is, at once, the ultimate L.A. insider and outsider: bigwigs are keen to utilize Freddy for the considerable (often unsavory) services he offers, but they tend to avoid associating with him in public. In Widespread Panic, Freddy related his story from purgatory: his afterlife, it turns out, wasn't all that different from his high/low life on the Hollywood scene. But, as bad as Freddy is--and he is very bad, indeed--he is also frank and sometimes very funny, frequently at his own expense. 

The Enchanters continues Freddy's narrative, circa 1962 L.A., when a series of seemingly disparate events appear to be converging into a single byzantine intrigue. At least that's what Freddy O starts to believe. Thanks to his endless supply of uppers, Freddy doesn't sleep much these days so--sometimes--reality may get a little fuzzy around the edges. Things go awry from the very beginning when Freddy and the Hat Squad's attempt to rescue a kidnapped starlet leads to the book's murderous opening act. 

On his own, Freddy (and a handpicked band of not-so-merry men) has been hired by Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa, to help bring down the Kennedy Brothers (President John and Attorney General Bobby, that is) before they haul him to a jail cell. Hoffa wants dirt, by any means necessary. Specifically, he wants Freddy to stay hot on the tail of Marilyn Monroe, whom Hoffa suspects the K Brothers are tag-teaming. This includes 24-hour surveillance, breaking and entering, and wiretapping, not only for Monroe, but for actor and Kennedy brother-in-law Peter Lawford (wife, Pat, is a Kennedy sister and former "acquaintance" of Freddy's), whose Malibu beach house is, allegedly, JFK's latest "fuck pad".  

In addition to following Hoffa's commands, Freddy sneaks away to provide late-night security for suddenly-single Eddie Fisher at The Losers Club; Eddie's act has gone boffo now that Liz and Dick have very publicly turned the Cleopatra set into their own Egyptian-themed fuck pad. While Eddie croons, and disses his soon-to-be ex-wife, Freddy befriends Fisher pal and baseball star, Bo Belinsky, who has just made history pitching a no-hitter for the Los Angeles Angels. The popular Belinsky is a stud-about-town, and someone Freddy--at Eddie's instigation--may be able to use for more nefarious purposes later on. 

Happening concurrent to all this: a sexual predator has been stalking upscale blondes in their homes in Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. With each new incident, the unknown perpetrator's modus operandi escalates. Initially, this appears to be something separate from Freddy's ongoing endeavors, a case for local law enforcement or The Hat Squad. However, the longer the sex creep's activities continue unabated, the more Freddy imagines links to his own activities. Incapable of keeping his nose out of the sordid business, Freddy begins to suspect that someone (other than himself and his undercover boys) may be stalking Monroe. 

Various other characters come and go, including: LAPD Chief William Parker, Future LAPD Chief Darryl Gates, studio head Darryl F. Zanuck, L.A. County Sheriff Pete Pitchess, Lois Nettleton, long-dead movie starlet Carole Landis, Mayor Sam Yorty, Monroe's acting coach Natasha Lytess, Roddy McDowall, crooked cops, car-hopping call-girls, deranged doctors, movie-mad high schoolers, Neo-Nazis, drug smugglers, gay porn performers, mobsters, one very determined femme fatale--they all cross paths with Freddy at one time or another. The vast majority of these characters--and they are legion--were once real people, including Freddy O, himself. 

As the summer of 1962 wears on, Freddy finds himself enmeshed in something he can't quite define. Something dark, dangerous and wholly compelling. Synapses fire through his drug-addled, sleep-deprived brain but actual connections prove elusive. Threads come together and break away, retwining themselves into ever more dire intuitions hinting at layers upon layers of deceit. Something is off. His cop's instinct has told him that much from the outset. Something is off about all of it, he realizes, once one case starts to merge with another. But, what is all of it? That is what Freddy Otash must figure out before he finds himself in the slammer. Or with a bullet in his head. 

A lifelong resident of L.A., James Ellroy knows his hometown inside and out. He was even acquainted with Fred Otash at one time. It seems probable that Fred was very much like the Freddy we meet in the books. It's also important to note that real-life Fred, like his fictional counterpart, was occasionally employed by Confidential Magazine in the 1950's; traces of those titillating tales have crept into the pages of Ellroy's books. How much of it actually happened makes for interesting speculation. Throw your preconceptions to the wind when you open the Otash books. 

The Marilyn Monroe presented in The Enchanters will certainly not go down well with hardcore MM fans or the mythmakers with a vested interest in maintaining her iconic, goddess-y image. I know a few folks who were outraged by Andrew Dominik's (and Joyce Carol Oates') portrayal of her in Blonde; The Enchanters will send them into cardiac arrest if they bother to read it at all (which I doubt). Because Marilyn is a key--if evasive--figure in The Enchanters, she has more of a presence in this book than, say, Elizabeth Taylor, who--except for one provocatively funny sex scene--provides peripheral glamor and dish. On the other hand, Peter Lawford shows up often enough that he comes off looking even worse than Monroe: serial adulterer; craven coward and opportunist; big-time boozer; pimp for JFK; talentless hanger-on. With only a few exceptions, Ellroy doesn't do the other characters any favors, either--not even his beloved LAPD. Surprisingly, it is Bobby Kennedy--referred to in these pages as "Ratfuck Bobby"--who, in assessing the debris at the end, winds up earning Freddy's gratitude and grudging respect. 

At 423 wildly entertaining pages, The Enchanters is a labyrinthine effort that will require (as does its predecessor) some effort on the part of the reader to engage with Freddy O, whose first-person voiceover is pure tabloid breathlessness at its rawest and most profane. There is also pain in Freddy's voice here that was absent in Freddy's prior outing. It seems that underneath all the savagery and shenanigans, Freddy is a soft touch for the ladies, five of whom manage to break through his unyielding, remorseless shell--in very different ways--to lend him some much-needed humanity. By the time the blood-spattered (and ultimately moving) grand finale rolls around, you may even find yourself rooting for Freddy. 

Which is not to say that Fred Otash is--or was, in real life--a good guy. He may be temporarily  redeemed, but can a guy like Freddy ever be saved from his own dark impulses? Maybe there will be a third book in the Otash series--fingers crossed--and we'll find out, but since his whole journey started out (ended up?) in purgatory, things aren't looking good for him. 

*The first appearance of Fred Otash in James Ellroy's work was as a supporting player in the Underworld Trilogy (American Tabloid, 1995, The Cold Six Thousand, 2001, Blood's a Rover, 2009). The novella, Shakedown: Freddy Otash Confesses was his first turn as a leading man. Widespread Panic was his first starring role in a full-length novel.