A programme exploring the work of crime writer James Ellroy, whose credits include 'LA Confidential', 'The Black Dahlia', and 'My Dark Places', the latter a harrowing memoir of his own mother's murder. Ellroy later moved on from crime writing to pen his own secret history of the United States. Timed to coincide with the UK publication of the second volume of his 'Underworld USA' trilogy - 'The Cold Six Thousand' - in 2001, the film takes a tour of Ellroy's often disturbing world.