The Darkest Glare - by Chip Jacobs (Paperback)

About the Book

The Darkest Glare was previously released in significantly different form as The Ascension of Jerry, March 2012.

Book Synopsis

Late-seventies Los Angeles was rampant with killers and shady characters, but all the go-getters at Space Matters saw was possibility. Richard Kasparov was handsome and charismatic; his younger associate, Jerry Schneiderman, brilliant and nerdy. When the pair hired a veteran contractor to oversee construction, the space planning firm they operated out of a hip mansion in LA's Miracle Mile district appeared poised to transform the boundless skyline into their jackpot. After the promising team imploded, however, the orderly lines on their blueprints succumbed to treachery and secrets. To get even, one of the ex-partners launched a murder-for-profit corporation using, among other peculiar sorts, a bantam-sized epileptic with a deadeye shot and a cross-dressing sidekick. The hapless criminals required a comical number of attempts to execute their first target. Once they did, on a rainy night in the San Fernando Valley, the surviving founder of Space Matters was thrown into a pressure cooker existence out of a Coen Brothers movie. Threatened for money he didn't have, he donned a disguise, survived a heart-pounding encounter at the La Brea Tar Pits, and relied on an ex-Israeli mercenary for protection. In the end, he had to outfox a glowering murderer, while asking if you can ever really know anyone in a town where dirty deals send men to their graves. In The Darkest Glare, Chip Jacobs recounts a spectacular, noir-ish, true-crime saga from one of the deadliest eras in American history. You'll never gaze out windows into the dark again. Included as a bonus is an original true crime short from the same unhinged era. In "Paul & Chuck," a flashy, crusading attorney wages war against the messianic leader of a bloodthirsty cult determined to teach the world to stay away.

Review Quotes

"Jacobs' The Darkest Glare lays out the wild, frankly-too-bizarre-to-summarize-accurately history of a real estate team that turned to contract executions in 1970s Los Angeles. All the quintessential Southern California noir strands are there: land use, building firms, business partnerships gone sour, entrepreneurs on the hustle, and a team of would-be criminals straight out of an Elmore Leonard side adventure. Jacobs handles it all with flair, telling a story full of over-the-top characters with skill and subtlety."
-Crime Reads

"The engrossingly bizarre tale of a murder plot within Los Angeles real estate circles...An entertaining true-crime period piece built around a chillingly odd sociopathic villain."
-Kirkus Reviews

"...horrifying and hilarious."
-Publishers Weekly

"Jacobs' chops are on brilliant display in The Darkest Glare, a delightfully off-kilter true-crime tale. The prose is intimate, darkly funny, and crisp. This isn't an old song in a new key, but an entirely new song about crime, fear, and a weird kind of redemption that could only happen in the general vicinity of Hollywood."
-Ron Franscell, bestselling author of The Darkest Glare

"This is not just another Hollywood Whodunit. In the end we find it is really about one man's search and struggle to find his own personal truths and redemption. Well written and highly recommended."
-Steve Hodel, bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger

Praise for Chip Jacobs
"A riveting and enjoyable book at how local myths are constructed, and a vivid depiction of a time and a place that felt full of possibilities."
-Booklist

"A completely original and genre-defying work-both historical novel and metaphysical noir. The author has caught the bras ring and given it to us as pure gold."
-Tristine Rainer, author of Apprenticed to Venus, My Years with Anaïs Nin

About the Author

Chip Jacobs is a genre-crossing author and prize-winning journalist. His first novel, Arroyo, about Pasadena, California's mysterious Colorado Street Bridge, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, CrimeReads most anticipated book and Independent Book Publisher Award honoree. Among his other books are the international bestselling Smogtown, which he co-wrote with William J. Kelly and is under development for a streaming series, the acclaimed black-comedy, true-crime story, The Darkest Glare, and the Indies Book of the Year Finalist, Strange As It Seems. Jacobs' reporting and subjects have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Marketplace, CNN, LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Daily News, and elsewhere. Learn more at chipjacobs.com.