When he is assigned to investigate a robbery at the home of the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) sanctioned heroin dealer, he uncovers a plot to bring the city's crime syndicates into collusion with the channels of justice.

White Jazz's prologue is told by protagonist David Douglas Klein, years after the events have taken place: All I have is the will to remember.

He has a sister named Meg, with whom he shares an incestuous attraction, and performs contract killings for the mob to cover the costs for law school.

After setting up a raid on a bookmaking operation, Klein and his partner, George "Junior" Stemmons, are ordered to protect a witness in a probe into organized crime in boxing.

Later that night, Captain Wilhite, of the corrupt Narcotics Squad, summons Klein to investigate a burglary at the home of J. C. Kafesjian, a drug dealer sanctioned by the LAPD.

Klein gets a side job from Howard Hughes to obtain information on an actress named Glenda Bledsoe that would violate the morality clause of her full-service contract.

Klein learns through Cohen that Glenda has a "publicity date" with actor Rock Rockwell which violates the clause.

During surveillance of Glenda, Klein finds out she, Rockwell, Touch Vecchio, and George Ainge are planning a fake kidnapping.

Klein and Exley discover that Smith is selling heroin exclusively to the black population in the Southside to keep crime in that area "contained".

Finding himself grappling with all of his crimes and everything that is happening, Klein decides to meet Smith, who had earlier offered him a deal.

In the epilogue, set many years later, Klein plans to return to Los Angeles intending to destroy Exley's gubernatorial campaign, take revenge on Carlisle and Smith and find Glenda.

"James Ellroy's latest book WHITE JAZZ makes previous detective fiction read like Dr.

"Ellroy's tenth novel burns with the memory of Rodney King in its descriptions of unimaginably cruel law officers who are not merely tainted by corruption on a vast scale but pursue conventional police work as a sideline to more lucrative illegal activities that burst into the public consciousness in violent frenzies.... An undeniably artful frenzy of violence, guilt and unappeased self-loathing.

Mr. Ellroy, in order to pack maximo action into minimo pages, has developed what he clearly views as a whiplash telegraphic style.

But we can't really begin to care about characters who never even get to inhabit a complete sentence.Various attempts at a film adaption of White Jazz have been under development since the 1990s.

Nolte and John Cusack were set to star in the film, with Winona Ryder reportedly in discussions to join them.

"[6] On November 30, 2006, it was reported that George Clooney was set to star in a newly green-lit film adaptation of the novel for Warner Independent Pictures.

[7] Joe Carnahan said this of his brother's script, "It's, to me, what that book always was – the point of departure from the Eisenhower '50s to the psychedelic freakshow, Manson '60s.

"[10] Carnahan had also confirmed that the characters of Ed Exley and Dudley Smith would not be in the film version despite their presence in the book,[11] as Regency Productions has its own plans for a sequel to L.A.

[16] Having finished the last draft of the screenplay,[14] Carnahan initially stated that he would still make the film and had "a couple of options in terms of other actors that I am completely over the moon for.