Widespread PanicFrom the modern master of noir comes a novel based on the real life Hollywood fixer Freddy Otash, the malevolent monarch of the 1950s L. A. underground, and his Tinseltown tabloid Confidential magazine. Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in 50s L. A. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp and, most notably, the head strong arm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet