Smog

From the internationally bestselling author of Sweetbitter, a provocative and heady mix of true crime and dark pyschological noir, set during the Menendez trial in 1990s LA

Los Angeles, early 90s. Rodney King has been beaten, East LA has burned, the Northridge earthquake has collapsed the 10 freeway, and two handsome brothers from Beverly Hills are on trial for the brutal murder of their parents. The entire country is riveted.

So is Hugo Byrne.

A renowned journalist – decades sober, privately repressed, and haunted by the violent death of his own daughter – Hugo arrives at the Chateau Marmont to cover the trial for a glossy national magazine. He intends to write the definitive account of the Menendez trial. Instead, he finds himself less interested in the evidence, and pulled into something murkier, lurid, and tragic.

What happens outside the courtroom is just as fascinating as the theatrE inside. And no one fascinates Hugo more than his close friend Liv Ellis, a quick-witted, bookish Beverly Hills society wife who accompanies Hugo to the trial and whose obsession with the trial is as mysterious as her origins.

What happened in the Menendez house? Who is Liv Ellis? And what happens in the homes of the glitterati that haunt the city’s seen and be seen restaurants, hotel lounges and tennis clubs?

A heady mix of true crime and dark psychological noir, Smog is a story of wealth, privilege, and abuse – a suspenseful inquiry into the dark heart of that universal institution that is supposed to protect us but so often betrays: the family.

© 2027 Simon & Schuster Audio UK (Audiobook): 9781398537712

Release date

Audiobook: 22 April 2027