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 main literary obsession of 2025, and I don’t plan on leaving him anytime soon. The demon dog of crime fiction is too compelling to abandon, even with his odd persona.

Widespread Panic is surprisingly short for an Ellroy book—my edition was only 336 pages—but it is rich with detail. The protagonist, Freddy Otash, is a familiar figure from Ellroy’s Underworld USA series and a fascinating part of Hollywood history.

Otash, a former LAPD officer and private investigator, gained notoriety as a fixer and researcher for the tabloid Confidential magazine. If a scandal needed cleaning up or creating, Otash was the man to call. Most famously, he was hired by Peter Lawford to investigate Marilyn Monroe, a story that fueled decades of conspiracy theories about her connection to JFK.

Widespread Panic explores Otash’s seedy work in the early 1950s as he mingles and clashes with Tinseltown’s elite. Unlike Ellroy’s previous works, this book includes a speculative element: Otash narrates from purgatory, delivering an unfiltered monologue of his life and crimes to a hopefully merciful 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: Kayleigh Donaldson remains captivated by Ellroy’s gritty crime narrative, drawn especially to the mix of historical detail and supernatural narration in Widespread Panic.

Pajiba — 2025-11-04