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  • James Ellroy reads from Chapter One of THE COLD SIX THOUSAND.

  • A dramatis personae of the fictional and fictional-based-on-actual characters who inhabit the novel.

  • Excerpts from a documentary on Ellroy by filmmaker Vikram Jayanti: JAMES ELLROY'S FEAST OF DEATH.

  • A timeline where you can find some of the fictional "documents" written by Ellroy that he has placed throughout the novel.

     

     

    DRAMATIS PERSONAE (as provided by James Ellroy)

     

    The three main protagonists of THE COLD SIX THOUSAND:

    WAYNE TEDROW, JR. -- age 29. Las Vegas cop sent to Dallas coincidentally the weekend Jack Kennedy buys it -- 11/22/63 -- Vegas intelligence squad cop, locked into a deathly moral conflict with his old man, WAYNE TEDROW, SR. a wealthy ultra-rightwing fat cat.

    WARD LITTELL -- age 50. A traumatized ex-Jesuit seminarian, former FBI agent turned mob lawyer. A man with the hubris to think that he can manipulate the demonic J. Edgar Hoover.

    PETE BONDURANT -- Rogue enforcer, French-Canadian protestant emigre committed anti-communist, killer, goon, six of the seven most fearsome individuals on God's green earth.

    The historical characters are as follows:

    JOHN KENNEDY -- Pussyhound president of the United States. Stops a bullet in Dealy Plaza, 1963.

    J. EDGAR HOOVER -- Known to many as Gay Edgar Hoover. The demonically voyeuristic and manipulative boss of the FBI.

    HOWARD HUGHES -- Racist, germ-phobic, recluse, drug addict billionaire.

    CARLOS MARCELLO -- Mob boss of New Orleans.

    SAM GIANCANA -- Mob boss of Chicago.

    JONNY ROSELLI -- Number Two in the Chicago Mob.

    SANTO TRAFFICANTE -- Mister Big in the Tampa, Florida Mob.

    MOE DALITZ -- Architect of Las Vegas's "Clean Town" policy and big a time Mob fixer.

    MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. -- Arguably the greatest twentieth-century American. The head of the SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Council. Mr. Big Time in the Civil Rights circles.

    ROBERT KENNEDY -- Attorney General of the United States. Key Crime Fighter of the Twentieth Century. Later, Junior Senator from New York.

    BAYARD RUSTIN -- Homosexual civil rights leader.

    SAL MINEO -- Homosexual faded movie star, pawn of the FBI in their plans to entrap Martin Luther King.

    FRED OTASH -- Goon, private eye to the stars. The guy that you went to see in fifties and sixties LA, if you wanted to bug a hotel to get your girlfriend an abortion or get a picture of Rock Hudson with a dick in his mouth. You saw Freddy O.

     

    LISTEN TO ELLROY'S PRESENTATION OF THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE.