Clay is a successful screenwriter middle-aged & disaffected; hes in LA to cast his new movie. However this trip is anything other than professional & hes soon drifting through a louche & long-familiar circle -- a world largely populated by the band of infamous teenagers first introduced in Less Than Zero. But his debauched reverie is about to be interrupted by a violent plot for revenge & Clays seemingly endless proclivity for betrayal & exploitation looks set to land him somewhere darker & more ominous than ever before. A murder mystery -- a woozy paranoid hallucinatory version of LA noir Sunday Times Brilliantly written & coolly self-aware.. . Here as in Less Than Zero Ellis is plumbing the depths of human nature exposing it at its worst. Observer The novel is a kind of modern noir & as in Chandler the forms accepted master atmosphere is king. Paranoia prevails Independent on Sunday