The story is about Los Angeles Police Department officers during the 1950s who are involved with a mixture of lies sex corruption and murder following a mass murder at the Nite Owl coffee shop. The story eventually encompasses organized crime political corruption heroin trafficking pornography prostitution tabloid journalism institutional racism plastic surgery and Hollywood. The novel`s title refers to the infamous 1950s scandal magazine Confidential which was fictionalized as Hush-Hush magazine in the novel (although a tabloid magazine called Hush-Hush also existed during 1950s). Jack Vincennes is a likable Hollywood police officer who works part-time as the technical adviser for Badge of Honor a popular Dragnet-like television show. Vincennes is associated with Hush-Hush: He receives hefty payoffs for making orchestrated celebrity arrests often involving narcotics that will attract even more readers to the magazine - and more fame to himself. Edmund Exley the son of