THE DARKEST GLARE

The engrossingly bizarre tale of a murder plot within Los Angeles real estate circles.

Journalist Jacobs ably captures the seamy backdrop of 1970s Southern California via the strange saga of acquaintance and prominent Angeleno Jerry Schneiderman. “Over two years,” writes the author, “he said not a peep about how he transformed himself from a picked-on Jewish kid from a throwaway section of L.A. into a successful developer/public advocate with an infectious cackle. Never once did he mention that he was the weak tip in a murder triangle.” Jacobs describes this milieu as chaotic yet ambitious: “This is what hungry companies did in the late-seventies LA of social experimentation. They fed the need, caring little if it were for a chiropractor, pop psychology gimmick, or conglomerate.” The murder improbably germinated due to an ill-fated partnership in an upstart space-planning firm comprised of charismatic Richard Kasparov (whose financial chicanery would imperil the business), workaholic Jerry, and their foreman Howard, “a fair-skinned Charles Bronson” whose competent exterior concealed a spiraling violent rage. About Howard, the author wonders, “why did an old-school construction chief with a trick back, nervous wife, and a union card decide to mortgage his soul?” Following workplace conflicts, Howard recruited hapless underworld figures for an ambitious murder-for-hire scheme, starting with his erstwhile partners. After numerous bungled attempts, which Jacobs plays for humor and tension, Howard’s gunman succeeded in murdering Richard. He then confronted Jerry with insults, threats, and blackmail, noting, “I’ve killed before Richard and gotten away with it. And I’ll do it again—with you.” Eventually, Howard was arrested but not before subjecting Jerry and others to protracted trauma. Notes the author, “Should Howard get out, prosecutors still believed, some of those who dared to tell the truth about him would ‘be as good as dead.’ ” (Howard died in prison.) Jacobs writes in a pulpy, flamboyant style that mostly masks some repetition and digression.

An entertaining true-crime period piece built around a chillingly odd sociopathic villain.