The Big Nowhere

by James Ellroy

The plot is about three characters; L.A. Deputy Sheriff Danny Upshaw investigates a brutal sex murder which becomes a string of killings, working outside the law in his efforts to catch him. Turner "Buzz" Meeks, a disgraced former cop, now works for millionaire Howard Hughes and gangster Mickey Cohen as a fixer, and begins a dangerous affair with Cohen's mistress Audrey Anders. LAPD lieutenant Malcolm "Mal" Considine, involved in a bitter child custody case, tries, with varying success, to do the right things in an environment of deception, paranoia, and brutality. The three men gradually become part of a task force investigating Communism in Hollywood. The story takes place in the aftermath of the notorious Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the resultant Zoot Suit Riots.

Over the course of the novel, Danny Upshaw becomes increasingly obsessed with the murder case - characterized by violent and sexual mutilations of male victims' corpses post-mortem - and begins to confront his own latent homosexuality in the process. He closes in on the killer, as the murders begin to connect to the UAES, the leftist Hollywood organization being investigated, particularly an actor named Reynolds Loftis, who matches the description of the suspected killer. Upshaw's investigation, however, is cut tragically short when a feud between County and City police leads to him being pegged for the killing of a corrupt LAPD detective who questioned his sexuality. Fearing the outcome of this investigation, Upshaw takes his own life with the murder spree still unsolved.

From this point, Meeks and Considine pick up the investigation. Meeks does this out of a sense of responsibility - he committed the killing for which Upshaw was framed, but did so in self-defense while with Audrey Anders, forcing him to cover up the killing for fear of Cohen's reprisal, and inadvertently leading to Upshaw becoming the prime suspect due to his history with the dead man. Considine, meanwhile, partnered with Upshaw while the latter went undercover as a Communist, and feels a sense of obligation to him as well. Meeks and Considine share a rocky history, but set this aside to finish the case. Ultimately they identify the true killer - Reynolds Loftis' illegitimate son Coleman Masskie, with whom he had an incestuous affair, and who was attempting to frame his father in retaliation. In a climactic confrontation, Masskie kills both Loftis and Considine before being killed by Meeks, who is left the sole survivor. Seeking closure, Meeks tracks down a UAES-affiliated psychiatrist who was privy to Masskie's murderous inclinations. He discovers that Masskie, who briefly spoke to Danny Upshaw as a witness early in the investigation, began stalking the deputy and developed a mutual sexual obsession with him.

The investigation also provides an apparent, fictional solution to the Sleepy Lagoon murder - it's revealed that a young Coleman Masskie witnessed LAPD lieutenant Dudley Smith committing the murder, a racist hate crime in retaliation for the Latino victim sleeping with his niece. This was part of what forced Masskie into hiding with his father, and eventually factors into his killings, as he emulates Smith's use of a "zoot stick" when mutilating his victims' corpses. Dudley Smith is a prominent lead investigator of the anti-Communist investigation, and is never charged with the crime - however, this discovery contributes to Meeks' and Considine's disillusionment with the investigation. At the conclusion of the novel, after Mickey Cohen finds out about Meeks' affair with Anders, Meeks burns down the DA's house along with all of the anti-Communist investigative material before leaving town.

While the novel mocks opportunistic fruits," "homos", and "nances;" black people are "boogies" and "jigs:" and their neighborhoods are all "Niggertown."