The Dead Circus

by John Kaye

Book Overview

John Kaye's two novels have established him as one of today's most stunning chroniclers of Los Angeles, a city of rockers and private eyes, script girls and wiseguys, innocents and Charles Manson. In The Dead Circus it's 1986. Gene Burk is an ex-cop, fanatical record collector, and private eye. Devastated by the death of his fiancee, Gene becomes obsessed with an unsolved mystery from his days with the LAPD: the late-sixties death of up-and-coming...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802140173
• ISBN13: 9780802140173
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Plain good reading!

Started reading this book just because I had nothing else handy. Wow! It grabbed me immediately and I just hung on until it was done. I found it a bit unnerving and magnetic at the same time. I knew Bobby Fuller's death had never been resolved but was never aware where he hailed from until I spent 5 years in El Paso, Texas. People far too young to have known him or his hard driving rock still speak of him with awe. From Fuller's unsolved death to sub-plots dealing with Charles Manson, Frank Sinatra and others the book sparks the imagination and keeps you reading until the end. "I Fought the Law and the Law Won". Did they?

First 250 Pages 5 Stars Plus Last 50 -1 F- Great Read Though

The first 250 pages or so of this book were incredible, this was the best book at that point since Ken Grimwood's Replay- John Kaye's writing and subject were incredible at this point- he combined Bobby Fuller, Charles Manson, Frank Sinatra into a fascinating novel that made it sound like he was there but the last 50 pages were pathetic, like the guy was sick and just called in these pages. What the flunk! I was waiting for a climax- there wasn't one. Because the first 250 pages or so were great, I recommend you buy this book but beware of the last 50 or so pages-a major dissapointment.

Fun Reading

The Dead Circus is fun reading. Gene Burk, a 40ish ex-LA cop in the mid-eighties, mourning the death of his fiance in a plane crash, decides to solve the one unsolved "crime" from his life as a cop that still haunts him--the apparent suicide of Bobby Fuller. Kaye' story is sort of all over the map--jumping from character to character, discussing three events in one short paragraph--but somehow it's not overly confusing. Burk's quest brings him into the warped and bizarre world of Charles Manson. The Dead Circus is an unpredictible story that starts off almost as a standard crime novel and then goes into something unto itself. Enjoy.

Corrupted lives on a tide of nostalgia

In this compelling yarn, a group of disparate Hollywood denizens - including minor crooks, an ex-cop, an alcoholic screenwriter, a member of the Charles Manson clan, and others - live lives inhabited and motivated by memories of their youth. The ostensible plot has to do with the ex-cop, Gene Burk, finding out who years ago murdered a popular rock-and-roll musician, but in fact the story is more that of Burk's attempt to reconstruct the early life of his fiancee, who has died in a plane crash. Charles Manson and the violence he instigated figure heavily in the story, but Manson emerges as a sort of twisted philosopher/poet of the corruption that infects everyone. Manson seems to be only the most corrupted among a cast of damaged characters in a town where violence and predation abound. The author's skill at evoking the names and events of Hollywood in mid-twentieth century make this an intriguing novel rather than just another sordid tale.