In the summer of 1989 John Williams embarked on an epic journey through a deeply troubled USA.

A right-wing Republican administration seemed bent on rolling back the advances of the civil rights era; the Supreme Court were partially reversing the Roe vs Wade ruling on abortion; criminals from the Central Park rapist to the serial killers Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacey were all over the news.

Who did Williams turn to make sense of all this? America's crime writers - that's who. He talked to novelists like James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard, Sara Paretsky and James Lee Burke, and visited the places they write about, like Los Angeles and Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans.

The result was an instant cult classic that remains deeply relevant today: both an incisive and funny travelogue and a revealing guide to the lives and works of America's finest crime writers, caught at their peak.

An acute journey, alive with the stark and the surreal * GQ *
Part travelogue, part interviews, stuffed with anecdotes, critical asides and astute observations, Into the Badlands brings personality and pleasure into the stuffy and sombre world of literary commentary... A refreshingly vital approach * CITY LIMITS *
There is vital sociological and moral comment here * PATRICIA HIGHSMITH *
An interesting, engaging literary travelogue * INDEPENDENT *
A vital mixture of literary criticism, personality profiles and imaginary geography * NEW STATESMAN *

JOHN L WILLIAMS was born in Cardiff and now lives in London. He's written more than a dozen books, ranging from his Cardiff Trilogy of novels to biographies of characters as diverse as Michael X and Shirley Bassey. His latest book, Heatwave, is a history of the long, hot summer of 1976. He also writes crime fiction under the name John Lincoln. His journalism has appeared everywhere from the NME to the Financial Times. He co-organises the riotous Laugharne Weekend festival in West Wales.