By JAMES ELLROY

SUMMARY:The concluding volume of the Lloyd Hopkins' trilogy — Ellroy's contemporary (re: 1980s) treatment of an L.A.P.D. detective. Ellroy had conceived the Hopkins series as a cycle of five novels and began plotting the fourth novel, "The Cold Six Thousand," but abandoned the series in order to begin composition of "The Black Dahlia." Ellroy would later use the title of the abandoned book for his second novel in "The Underworld USA Trilogy."

In his final outing, a "disgraced" Hopkins is assigned to assist the F.B.I. in its investigation of a series of bank roberies.

PUBLISHER'S TEASER:"Suicide Hill is the third volume in the saga of Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins, whose previous exploits were chronicled in Blood on the Moon and Because the Night.

"In disgrace after a badly handled arrest in New Orleans, Hopkins is assigned as a liaison officer to an FBI investigation of a series of diabolical and clever bank robberies. Three men have done their homework: they choose bank managers who are having affairs, kidnap their girlfriends, and force the managers to open the banks early...

"Hopkins' insights into the criminal mind bear fruit when the bank robbers turn violent and he finds himself with a bit of information he would just as soon not have — information about police corruption that reaches into the office of his sworn enemy Fred Gaffney, head of the Internal Affairs Division. Ridding the Department of Hopkins is the culmination of years of effort on Gaffney's part: with the information Hopkins has uncovered, though, Gaffney's career — and his very life — will be put in jeopardy."

—© Mysterious Press

POINTS:The novel was first published in hardback by Mysterious Press (ISBN: 0-89296-235-6) in April 1986 and totals 280 pages. Ellroy dedicated the novel to Meg Ruley

The novel was collected with the other two Hopkins' novels "Blood on the Moon" and "Because the Night" in hardcover under the title, "L.A. Noir."

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