book data
492 ratings, 3.98 average rating, 32 reviews
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published
2005
by Arrow
binding
Paperback, 496 pages
isbn
0099366614
(isbn13: 9780099366614)
description
Los Angeles, 1950. Red crosscurrents and a string of brutal killings. Three men caught up in a massive web of ambition, perversion and deceit.
The...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 595)
Read in August, 1989
recommends it for:
mondo hollywood wolves
The best Ellroy book, hands down. Better than "Black Dahlia". Picture a fun house-mirrored Hollywood where a psycho killer tears his victims apart wearing dentures made of wolverine fangs, a closet queen vice cop investigating Communist sympathizer movie stars, and a cop who wants to smuggle his kid through Iron Curtain-era Europe during the Redder than Red Communist 1950's. The roller coaster ride of the Big Nowhere lasts for 400+ pages and has no brakes, so hold on tight!
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recommends it for:
anyone who liked The Black Dahlia
didn't like it as much as The Black Dahlia, but I couldn't put it down. ending was a little unsatisfying. I don't know what I was expecting. It was still great though. man, Ellroy can be/is one sick fuck.
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This dark, mean, nasty-hearted book had me forgetting to sleep, nearly getting in trouble for forgetting to come back from lunch hour, etc. Definitely this quartet is the best hard-boiled stuff I know since the Chandler/Hammett/Cain era. But it's also doing something different from those guys, something post-Chinatown: all the narrative balls flying in the air are a way of trying to give you this ultra-broad, kaleidoscopic perspective on the deep and ugly things that are creating '50s Los Angele...more
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Read in November, 2007
Even though this is one of Ellroy's highest rated novels (2nd in his L.A. Quartet), I had major problems getting into it. The plot is rich with characters and details, and it is written in the author's typical 1950's cop speak. With so many parallel stories, I had trouble understanding what was going on, and I probably should have taken notes. After finishing the book, I am still lacking a full understanding of it, though after page 200, the pieces finally DID start falling together a bit. The s...more
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LA noir, 1950's. Ellroy is the author of "LA Confidential" and "The Black Dahlia". Similar settings and plot. That is not to mean that this book is hum-drum or repetitious in any way. Anything but. I think what keeps me reading these is the sense of something huge and nasty going on underneath it all. Seems likely enough.
Pretty much everyone is going crazy- junkies, desperate actesses/whores, psychos, jazz, plastic surgery and evil doctors, dirty cops, McCarthy's r...more
Pretty much everyone is going crazy- junkies, desperate actesses/whores, psychos, jazz, plastic surgery and evil doctors, dirty cops, McCarthy's r...more
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Ellroy crossbreeds the detective novel, historical, and gothic horror; so we get an analysis of the impulses and pathology behind historical events and figures, a Boschian canvas of human depravity, a crackerjack plot, and three unlovable but compelling protagonists living on the edge. The plot involves Red Scare intrigue (and its connection to Hollywood greed) and very disturbing serial killer. Also features Howard Hughes, Mickey Cohen, bestiality, teamsters, wolverines, necrophilia, heroin, bl...more
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When I started this book I didn't realize that one of the main characters, Buzz Meeks, has a bit part in the L.A. Confidential movie. Meeks is an interesting character, somehow noble despite his corruption. Mal Considine is conflicted yet maintains a shred of heroism. And Danny Upshaw is tortured and complex. It's the second book in Ellroy's LA quartet (started in Black Dahlia and continued in L.A. Confidential and White Jazz). It was a great read and kept me interested.
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Read in August, 2008
recommends it for:
Ellroy Fans; Fans of Detective Fiction; History Buffs
My least fave of the five Ellroy books I've read, this is still decent. The second installment in the so-called 'L.A. Quartet', it's probably the weakest one but of course I haven't read White Jazz yet so we'll have to wait and see. I wasn't all that intrigued by the 'Commie Witch Hunt' plot angle, which was the main problem I had with the whole thing, but I did think the character of Deputy Upshaw was intriguing.
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James Ellroy is the only crime fiction writer that I've found to live up to the high quality of writing standard that Dashiell Hammett & Raymond Chandler set 50 yrs earlier. I didn't learn about him until July, 2007 & I then proceeded to read every bk of his I cd find in quick succession. Admittedly, the brutality of his obssessions was too much for me eventually - I'm glad I'm not him.
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Read in March, 2008
Ellroy's narrative is the kicker. Also, nice, complex mystery and historic plotlines. I wish there wasn't such a summary of what REALLY happened in the end, mostly because it seems improbably the person narrating had that lucid an understanding of what happened, and also because the reading audience had enough to satisfy us in the first place. Still, a great book.
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Read in September, 2008
Good follow up to the Black Dahlia. I little graphic - so beware. James Ellroy can paint a vivid picture with details that might disturb some. Good storyline and very interesting characters and great character development. His characters (even the "good" guys) don't have the best character or moral compasses, but they make for interesting storylines.
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Read in May, 2008
Nightmarish. Great hard-boiled detective fiction. Gruesome at times but brilliantly done gruesomeness. The Red Scare, mobsters, Hollywood actors, and less-than-honest cops and detectives all clash, resulting in intrigue, sleaze, political ambition and murder. Gut wrenching and altogether dark and gritty, all written with immense literary talent.
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Read in October, 2006
Segunda entrega de la tetralogía de Los Ángeles. La trama es más compleja que en La Dalia negra y el estilo empieza a embrollarse y a tender hacia las síncopas que caracterizan la obra más reciente de Ellroy. El protagonista es dificilillo, pero aguanta el peso de la novela. Como ocurre a lo largo de la saga, es inferior a su predecesora.
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This book is slick and brutal, maybe my favorite of Ellroy's novels. This is also before he began that fast forward style of writing that started with White Jazz. So this is one the last opportunities you'd have to enjoy his cool, lush descriptions of noir LA, as apposed to the pure propulsive narrative of Ellroy's later works.
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This is slept on, I think. LA Confidential does the Dos Passos meets Flemish painting thing. And White Jazz is like...jazz. But this thing's got Commies and a guy who thinks he's a Werewolf. Toss in some repressed homosexuality and a bit of that ol' my mother/my sister magic and you get Chinatown, Jake.
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i was a poncey overwriting college boy and then i picked up this book ... something broke inside me ... a poison still racing thu my veins ...
i tried rereading it and it seemed to suck. thats life i guess.
i tried rereading it and it seemed to suck. thats life i guess.
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Read in September, 1995
recommends it for:
people who like their noir dark and paranoid
Read this at Black Rock City strangely enough. This is Raymond Chandler violently coming down off a massive speed binge. The andidote for the tripe about the 1950's being the Happy Days of our country's history.
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Ellroy before he became a phenom. Tightly drawn characters battling for some crude sense of justice and sanity in a world where the world turns a deaf ear to depravity as long as it's on the side of the Law.
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Freakin amazing book. James Ellroy has an amazing ability to make you feel dirty but at the same time you'll enjoy every second of it. Couldn't put it down every time I've read it (which is like 10 times)
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recommends it for:
detectives and communists
It's good. It's gruesome and noir and has snappy dialogue and follows detectives solving murders and breaking communist-era unions in LA. Pretty bad-ass, not as good as Black Dahlia.
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currently-reading (on 6 people's shelves)
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noir (on 4 people's shelves)
crime-mystery (on 3 people's shelves)
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