Zoot-Suit Murders
Powerful fiction...a vivid tale of political intrigue and romance by a master of pictorial detail."-- Chicago TribuneLike his lavishly praised novels Rabbit Boss and Mile Zero, Thomas Sanchez's Zoot-Suit Murders combines a tautly arched narrative with fiercely visual prose and a starkly revisionist view of the American melting pot.The novel is set in an atmosphere choked with tension -- from the mean streets of the Los Angeles barrio to the mansions of the Hollywood Hills during the tumultuous days of World War II. Nathan Younger, an undercover agent, is investigating the brutal murder of two FBI men and the infiltration of zoot-suit gangs by fascists when he crosses paths with Kathleen La Rue, a beautiful apostle of a bizarre religious cult. The search for the killers leads these two improbable lovers along a dangerous trail of heroin pushers, movie stars, and fanatical politicians."Zoot-Suit Murders matches the best of the war novels in its execution, and may be the best of the home-front novels of World War II....The novel alternates between intimacy and sweep, a cinematic quality similar to that of Chinatown, an excellent, near-Hitchcockian technique."-- Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times