The Cold Six Thousand

By: James Ellroy

Narrated by: Craig Wasson

The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz, American Tabloid... James Ellroy's high-velocity, best-selling novels have redefined noir for our age, propelling us within inches of the dark realities of America's recent history. Now, in The Cold Six Thousand, his most ambitious and explosive novel yet, he puts the whole of the 1960s under his blistering lens. The result is a work of fierce, epic fiction, a speedball through our most tumultuous time.
It begins in Dallas. November 22, 1963. The heart of the American Dream detonated.

Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop, arrives with a loathsome job to do. He's got $6,000 in cash and no idea that he is about to plunge into the cover-up conspiracy already brewing around Kennedy's assassination, no idea that this will mark the beginning of a hellish five-year ride through the private underbelly of public policy.

Ellroy's furiously paced narrative tracks Tedrow's ride: Dallas back to Vegas, with the Mob and Howard Hughes, south with the Klan and J. Edgar Hoover, shipping out to Vietnam and returning home, the bearer of white powder, plotting new deaths as 1968 approaches ...
Tedrow stands witness, as the icons of an iconic era mingle with cops, killers, hoods, and provocateurs. His story is ground zero in Ellroy's stunning vision: historical confluence as American Nightmare.

The Cold Six Thousand is a masterpiece.

Critic reviews

“Ellroy rips into American culture like a chainsaw in an abbatoir. . . . Pick it up if you dare; put it down if you can.” –Time

“A wild ride. . . . An American political underbelly teeming with conspiracy and crime. . . . So hard-boiled you could chip a tooth on it.” –The New York Times Book Review

“A ripping read....the book is pure testosterone.” –The Plain Dealer

“A great and terrible book about a great and terrible time in America.” –The Village Voice

Excellent Follow-up to American Tabloid

This book is part two of a trilogy, beginning at around noon on November 22, 1963. This book continues the story of several fascinating police, mafia, FBI, CIA, and assorted oddballs involved in the JFK assassination and wide-scale crime (primarily in Las Vegas and Vietnam). As I wrote in my American Tabloid review, the book is violent, profane, and probably not for everyone, but I think it's another excellent piece of work by Ellroy.

Good story, Horrible character voices.

J. Edgar Hoovers voice was so bad and so annoying. The first book had such better voices. It was very hard getting used to them on this book. The book was great other than that.
If I hear "you're leading me again" I will scream.

Ellroy's writing style is fantastic

I listened to this a few months ago and am still thinking about it. Gritty, harsh, and dark, but riveting...You'll either love or hate his writing style, so listen to the sample.

a rip-snortin' conspiracy bunker-buster

...and one of the best books on Audible. Brilliantly narrated -- and this is a difficult book to get all brilliant with, trust me -- The Cold Six Thousand will rearrange your sense of second-half 20th century American history. James Ellroy writes like an avenging angel on meth. And in this case, that's a good thing. Can't recommend this one highly enough.

snap shots from the pages of history.

you can't unlearn what you learn. you can't unsee what you saw. you'll go there and will want to run away. your illusions will be crushed.