Royal Scandal, Hollywood Crime, Nail Salon Drama: Pajiba October 2025 Book Recommendations Superpost

What Books Are You Reading This Month?

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Books | November 3, 2025

Widespread Panic by James Ellroy

What is everyone currently reading? I'm back on the James Ellroy train.

Yes, Ellroy has been my primary literary obsession of 2025, and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. The master of crime fiction is too captivating to abandon, even if he is a genuine eccentric. Widespread Panic is surprisingly short by Ellroy's standards—my edition was just 336 pages—but it is rich in detail.

The protagonist is Freddy Otash, a familiar character from Ellroy’s Underworld USA series and an intriguing figure in Hollywood history. A former LAPD officer and private investigator, Otash gained notoriety as a fixer and investigator for the tabloid magazine Confidential. If you needed a mess cleaned up or created, Otash was the man to call.

Most famously, he was hired by Peter Lawford to investigate Marilyn Monroe.
This job fueled decades of conspiracy theories about Monroe’s connection to JFK.
Widespread Panic covers Otash’s shadowy work in early 1950s Hollywood.
He mingles with and often confronts some of Tinseltown’s brightest stars.

What sets this book apart from previous Ellroy novels is its unexpected speculative twist. Otash narrates the story from purgatory, delivering an unfiltered monologue about his life and crimes to a hopeful, forgiving higher power.

“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: James Ellroy’s Widespread Panic delivers a fast-paced dive into 1950s Hollywood through the eyes of Freddy Otash, blending crime history with a unique, speculative narration.

Pajiba — 2025-11-04