Royal Scandal, Hollywood Crime, Nail Salon Drama: Pajiba October 2025 Book Recommendations Superpost
Books I'm Reading This Month
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | November 3, 2025
Widespread Panic by James Ellroy
What is everyone reading right now? I’m back immersed in James Ellroy’s work. Yes, I know—another Ellroy book from me. But he has been my literary obsession for 2025, and I’m not planning to stop anytime soon. Ellroy’s gritty crime fiction is too compelling to put down, even though he is quite a character himself.
Widespread Panic is surprisingly short for Ellroy’s standards—only 336 pages in my edition—but it’s packed with rich detail. The story centers on Freddy Otash, a familiar character from Ellroy’s Underworld USA series and a fascinating figure in Hollywood history. Otash was an LAPD officer turned private investigator known as a fixer and researcher for the tabloid Confidential magazine. If you needed a scandal cleaned up or stirred, Otash was the man to call.
- Most famously, Otash was hired by Peter Lawford to investigate Marilyn Monroe, which sparked years of conspiracy theories about her connections to JFK.
- The book chronicles Otash’s sordid work in early 1950s Hollywood, where he mingled with and intimidated the stars.
What sets this book apart from Ellroy’s other works is its leap into the speculative. Otash narrates from purgatory, delivering an unfiltered monologue about his life and crimes to a higher power he hopes will forgive him.
“Otash is narrating this story from purgatory, offering a no-holds-barred monologue of his life and crimes to a hopefully forgiving higher force.”
Author’s summary: This gripping book blends crime history with speculative storytelling, revealing the dark underbelly of 1950s Hollywood through the eyes of a notorious fixer narrating from purgatory.