The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles

In 1926, musician Tom Hickey reads about a lynching the Los Angeles newspapers failed to report and realizes the Negro victim is an old friend. He goes to his neighbor, LAPD detective Leo Weiss who confirms that, officially, the lynching didn't occur. The murder happened in Echo Park, across the street from evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson's Angelus Temple. When Tom goes there looking for clues, he is greeted by an usher who continues to follow him after the service. Leo, a speakeasy owner, and a Klansman all warn him he's made formidable enemies - among them publisher and political heavyweight William Randolph Hearst. When Tom discovers the key to the murder, it lies close to home.

Ken Kuhlken’s novels have been honored as finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel, won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin’s Press Best First Novel competition, and been chosen as a finalist for the Shamus Best Novel Award.
His California Century novels, featuring detective Tom Hickey and sons, are: The Loud Adios (1943), The Venus Deal (1942), The Angel Gang (1949), The Do-Re-Mi (1971), The Vagabond Virgins (1979), and coming in May 2010, The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles (1926).