Los Angeles, right now. America with its back up against the wall. This Frankenstein’s monster of crimes and lurid dreams sewn together into something like a city.
A city ready to explode: A Hollywood pedophile is arrested, and is ready to tear down the city to get his freedom. A young woman goes missing—and men in black rubber gloves who look like cops clean out her apartment in the middle of the night. And the serial killer known as the LA Ripper is on the loose, leaving tragic/graphic/brutal crime scenes in his wake. Three people trying to keep their heads above the dirty water will find themselves coming together to unite these strands into one enormous, unspeakable crime …
Jake Deal is a gonzo live-streaming nightcrawler, beaming the city’s chaos straight to his audience of blood-hungry subscribers, giving them the view from the top of the mushroom cloud—until a job he can’t refuse drags him back into his old life of Hollywood glamour, drugs, sex and sleaze. Armed with cameras and hidden mics, he’ll infiltrate private clubs, gather high-class dirt—and stumble onto a conspiracy woven into the center of LA’s most powerful men, who call themselves “The Kids in the Candy Store.”
Doug Gibson is a street lawyer, who fights for his clients against the army of cops, prosecutors and judges—he is the knife they bring to the gunfight. But when he’s hired by a Hollywood pedophile ready to sell out his friends for a chance for freedom, he’ll take on a fight bigger than he could have imagined. And when his client “commits suicide” in prison, Gibson will have to stop being a weapon—and become a warrior.
Kara Delgado works for an underground private concierge company—a make-a-wish foundation for the terminally rich. She scores drugs, makes connections, and plans multi-million dollar sex parties.She has learned the secret truth of this world: there are no rules, only prices. Her best friend Phoebe has gone missing, and Kara’s the only person who knows that Phoebe’s place was wiped clean of evidence by men in black rubber gloves. But when she begins to unravel the mystery of what happened to Phoebe, and its connection to the killer known as the LA Ripper, it will drag her into the dark heart of the city.
As Jake, Doug and Kara all investigate these crimes, they’ll encounter ketamine-addled sitcom stars, bloody riots, homeless gangsters, a killer cop on death row, secret vaults in Beverly Hills, tech-bro orgies, medical cannibals, true crime junkies, private security wet-work teams, reality shows, street takeovers, car chases, coyotes, a sadistic Tarzan, and a three day, fifty million dollar wedding, before everything is revealed and they must each make their choice about how to fight back in this violent world before the bloody, blazing conclusion.
Based on the fact that he mentions the author in the acknowledgments & also closes that section of the book with a mention of his late dog, Ellroy, it’s very clear that Jordan Harper is a great admirer of James Ellroy.
Which is obviously extremely unsurprising. They both write blistering crime fiction novels set primarily in Los Angeles, and Harper was actually a writer/producer for a TV version of Ellroy’s LA CONFIDENTIAL that unfortunately didn’t get picked up (there’s an unaired pilot and it will always haunt me that I didn’t get to see it).
Ellroy’s influence on Harper has never been clearer than in A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE. While Harper never fully “goes there” as far as James Ellroy’s staccato prose style (which I’ll argue became harder and harder to read the further along Ellroy got in his career), there’s a certain punchiness to some of the chapters that is pure Ellroy. This is the third book of Harper’s that I’ve read and this is a writer operating at such a high level, like…fucking hell, this is such a captivating & disturbing crime fiction novel. It’s also deeply romantic in its own way, something Harper finds a way to sprinkle in throughout all his books.
This book is not marketed as a direct sequel to EVERYBODY KNOWS, and I’m not suggesting that it is. This can for sure be read on its own & it won’t be confusing. That being said, the two books are *very* much connected, and I personally believe reading EVERYBODY KNOWS first is the best choice! Again, A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE absolutely functions as a standalone so don’t let me deter you from picking it up, but fans of EVERYBODY KNOWS will be seriously rewarded here.
The story follows three different main characters:
Jake Deal, a nightcrawler/live streamer who drives all over Los Angeles, intercepting calls on a police scanner, then racing to crime scenes to broadcast grisly footage to his Creepy Crawl audience, often arriving on scene before the police.
Kara Delgado, a young woman who works for a sketchy celebrity concierge service. Her company swoops in and keeps badly-behaved celebrities out of trouble, but Kara’s whole world has been flipped upside down after the disappearance of her best friend & coworker, Phoebe. Kara is convinced that Phoebe was the first victim of what seems to be a VERY active new serial killer called the LA Ripper.
Doug Gibson, an attorney who has taken on the defense of Eric Algar. Algar is a disgraced Hollywood producer, sort of written as a mashup between Epstein/Weinstein/Schneider. Taking on such a scumbag client hasn’t exactly earned Doug a ton of goodwill, but everyone deserves their day in court. Additionally, Algar makes some pretty bold claims about a veritable treasure trove of incriminating evidence against many Hollywood elites. Doug wants to know more.
And as mentioned, in the background of all this is the work of a brutal serial killer, preying on women who all have a similar appearance. The LA Ripper storyline features some of the most violent & shocking writing I’ve seen from Harper, including at least one scene that absolutely turned my stomach & had me wondering (wishing) if Harper would ever write a full-on horror novel. At any rate, take care reading this one, as it goes to some terrible and dark places.
There’s an aspect of the book that…I hesitate to say anything about A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE frustrated me, but hmm. I was never bored reading this, not even for a moment. And it is deliriously well written. But the three main characters don’t cross paths until relatively late in the book, and in a way I wish it was different. But then of course, in another way, I don’t. However good the book is (and it’s very fucking good), when our characters finally do collide (particularly Jake & Kara), this book just crackles. It comes alive in a way that few books ever really do, and wow…the longer I sit with this one, I’m kind of in awe of Jordan Harper.
On the surface, none of our main characters is a typical “hero.” In one way or another, all three are pretty deeply enmeshed in some gross & sordid shit. But I guess writing these types of people, sort of dirtbag-with-a-heart-of-gold type characters is really Harper’s specialty. And even as Jake & Kara & Doug’s actions get more and more unhinged, dangerous, and reckless, you can’t help but fall for each of them.
This is modern LA noir at its absolute best. Super curious to see if Jordan Harper continues to connect his novels together, but either way, I’m the first in line for whatever he writes next. A VIOLENT MASTERPIECE is so raw & gritty, and so deeply connected to the culture and vibe of Los Angeles. One of the best books of the year, for sure.
Many thanks to Mulholland Books for sending this one my way!
Grimdark Dad 