The entire time I was reading this I felt as if I was watching a black and white film noir. Ben Collier arrives in Hollywood to work on a film for the US Army and to try to piece together what happened to his brother Danny, who supposedly jumped off of the balcony at his rented apartment. Everyone thinks it's a suicide except Ben, and he aims to prove it. But the further he gets into his investigations, the more he realizes that maybe he didn't know his brother very well at all. As he delves into his brother's death, he becomes caught up in some pretty nasty business, none the least of which is a zealous congressman who's trying to sort out who's red and who's not, and eventually Ben comes to realize that there are others who wish he'd just let things lie.

Kanon has succeeded in evoking the post World War II Hollywood era very well. The big studios are in their heydays, movie stars are making their way to the top, and underneath the glamor lies the seamy underbelly of Los Angeles. However, I found parts of this book quite tedious with a few scenes that probably could have been omitted to make the story much tighter and to make it flow a lot better. Many of the characters came off as flat with no personality and this also detracted from my enjoyment of this novel.

I would recommend it to people interested in the time period, and to those interested in McCarthy-type politics and how they affected people in Hollywood. Overall -- a good read, but rather long and often confusing.