Widespread Panic

New York: Knopf, 2021. First edition, Hardcover, New in dust jacket,. Chip Kidd. New York: Knopf:, 2021. First edition, Hardcover, New in dust jacket, 316 pp.<br/> Cover artwork by: Chip Kidd "Freddy Otash is the man in the know and the man to know in Tinseltown. He operates with two simple rules - he'll do anything but murder, and he'll never work with commies. Freddy is a corrupt L.A. cop on the skids. He executed a cop killer named Horvath and it gores him. So Captain 'Whiskey' Bill Parker cans him. Now, Freddy dons an array of new hats - sleazoid private eye, shakedown artist, matchmaker for Rock Hudson, pimp for President John F. Kennedy - and, most notably - the lead tipster and head strongarm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet - and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink and the scurrilous skank on the feckless foibles of misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Freaky Freddy outs them all! In Widespread Panic we traverse the depths of '50s L.A. and internalize the inner workings of Confidential. Dig: You'll go to Burt Lancaster's lushly appointed torture den. . . You'll gas on overhyped legend James Dean as Freddy's chief stooge. . . You'll be there for Freddy's ring-a-ding rendezvous with Liz Taylor. . . You'll be front and center as Freddy runs roughshod over the stars of the silver screen and the demimonde of the Hollywood hills."