The Cold Six Thousand
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| Author | James Ellroy |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | American Underworld Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Released | May 8, 2001 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 688 |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-0679403920 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | American Tabloid |
The Cold Six Thousand is a 2001 novel by James Ellroy.
It begins on November 22, 1963, minutes after the John F. Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Texas, and continues for roughly five years. It is the sequel to Ellroy's American Tabloid, and continues many of the first novel's characters and plotlines. Specifically, it follows three rogue American law-enforcement officials and their involvement in the turmoil of the 1960s. Ward Littell, former FBI agent turned high-powered Mafia lawyer, arrives in Dallas with J. Edgar Hoover's blessing to "manage" the investigation and ensure a consensus: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Pete Bondurant, Littell's best friend and partner, is a Mob soldier and veteran of the CIA's war against Fidel Castro and now the Mafia point-man for their Las Vegas operations. Wayne Tedrow, Jr., an Army veteran and Las Vegas cop, is paid six thousand dollars to fly to Dallas and murder a black pimp, and is instead thrust into the assassination's aftermath. As the tension over race relations and the Vietnam War builds and explodes throughout the decade, all three become involved in a single plot to kill two men: Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
Ellroy has stated in interviews that he is working on the sequel, currently untitled ("Police Gazette", one rumoured title, has been denied by Ellroy). It is tentatively scheduled for a 2007 release.
[edit] Structure
The Cold Six Thousand AKA American Death Trip (English translation of French title) is a novel with a very stylised and deliberate structure. It is substantially similar to the structure applied to its predecessor, American Tabloid, with some minor developments.
As in American Tabloid, all chapters begin with:
- The number of the chapter.
- The location of the action's beginning, usually the name of the city.
- The date of the action's beginning, as expressed in the American style MM/DD/YYYY.
The action of the book is completely sequential, as the dates indicate. Flashbacks occur, but only in the present tense memory of the protagonists.
There is no introduction or epilogue.
The novel contains "summary" chapters.
The structure differs from Tabloid's in:
- The novel has 122 chapters, compared to Tabloid's even 100.
- The novel covers a period of less than four years and six months, compared to Tabloid's exact 5 years.
- The novel is divided in 6 "books", compareed to Tabloid's 5.
The six books are:
Part I, EXTRADITION, 22nd November 1963 - 25th November 1963
Part II, EXTORTION, December 1963 - October 1964
Part III, SUBVERSION, October 1964 - July 1965
Part IV, COERCION, July 1965 - November 1966
Part V, INCURSION, (November 27, 1966 - March 18, 1968)
Part VI, INTERDICTION, March 19, 1968 - June 9, 1968
