L.A. Confidential (Quatuor de L.A., #3)

Oct 22, 2009 Kasia rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-crime-thriller, noir, seen-on-a-screen, lovely-covers

The never-ending parade of homogenous macho cops; the weak, dependable women - perfect victims for any crime; the overwhelmingly complex story line, sub-plot within sub-plot, twist upon twist - all that delivered in a flat, dry style. That's an Ellroy novel for you.

I know that it's supposed to add up to this intricate, dark story interwoven with sex and violence and thus gripping, like nothing else. But I, frankly, was bored to death. The scheming was a tad too elaborate for my taste. After a w...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Ginny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dal-film-al-libro, noir, romanzi, america

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Un atroce fatto di sangue al quale fa seguito una inarrestabile esplosione di violenza; un'indagine che tra alti e bassi si prolunga per circa otto anni; una vicenda torbida che ha contorte ramificazioni anche nel passato e una serie nutritissima di personaggi coinvolti in maniera più o meno diretta.
La complessità della trama, tortuosa come l'insospettabile rete di connivenze e responsabilità che verranno gradatamente alla luce, si regge su un impianto narrativo di assoluto rigore. Nulla è lasc...more Un atroce fatto di sangue al quale fa seguito una inarrestabile esplosione di violenza; un'indagine che tra alti e bassi si prolunga per circa otto anni; una vicenda torbida che ha contorte ramificazioni anche nel passato e una serie nutritissima di personaggi coinvolti in maniera più o meno diretta.
La complessità della trama, tortuosa come l'insospettabile rete di connivenze e responsabilità che verranno gradatamente alla luce, si regge su un impianto narrativo di assoluto rigore. Nulla è lasciato al caso ed ogni più minuscolo tassello troverà infine la sua logica collocazione, in un clima di tensione via via crescente e in un sapiente intreccio tra fiction e realtà.
Anche la prosa si fa potente strumento espressivo, passando da un registro più formale e articolato nelle parti denominate "Calendario" - che riportano atti d'ufficio, relazioni riservate o articoli di giornale - ad una forma sintetica, colloquiale e fortemente ellittica nel racconto vero e proprio dei fatti "dal vivo". Una scelta stilistica, quest'ultima, che asseconda con straordinaria efficacia la concitazione del ritmo narrativo, la fulmineità dell'azione e dei processi deduttivi, l'intensità delle emozioni.
Le figure principali, nitidamente scolpite a tutto tondo nella loro forza, così come nella fragilità dei loro umani impulsi, si incuneano nel cuore del lettore come presenze vivide e reali, perché reale è il bivio in cui si trovano nell'eterna lotta tra bene e male.
Una lotta senza eroi assoluti, ma costellata di piccoli grandi gesti di coraggio a contrastare l'allettamento e il predominio della corruzione e del crimine.
Non esiste neppure una netta distinzione tra buoni e cattivi, in quanto si può essere grandi o meschini, leali o inaffidabili, nobili o sciagurati sia nel perseguire la giustizia che nel violarla.
Così tre poliziotti che si servono della legge per motivi personali, spesso in feroce competizione tra loro, possono scoprire di avere in comune più di quanto loro stessi avrebbero mai immaginato; un agente rude e pieno di rabbia può rischiare la carriera e la vita per farsi paladino in difesa delle donne maltrattate; un delatore rampante e calcolatore può rivelare inattese doti di altruismo; e una prostituta somigliante a Veronica Lake rifiutare la soluzione più comoda e redditizia avventurandosi in un futuro incerto soltanto per amore.
Si lasciano dietro una orrenda scia di sangue e ognuno porta in sé i segni del dolore, ma in ogni caso "giustizia assoluta" è fatta.
Crudo, amaro, frenetico, inquietante, entusiasmante.
Ben più del film che ne è stato tratto.(less)

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Jan 11, 2011 Jana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Had to read it because I again watched the movie for the n-th time. Goodcopbadcop movie can't get better than this. Book on the other hand is so confusing and so long. I mean, it's the same as the movie just I had to check IMdB all the time to connect all the names and who's joined with whom, because it's straight to the bone - cut to the chase kind of talk. Of course I prefer Basinger Crow version.

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Dec 15, 2011 Miss Karen Jean Martinson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book

This book sustained our cross-country road trip - from LA to Chicago for new beginnings and my new job. 3 adults and 2 cats in the cab of a U-Haul truck. And our "stories," which gave birth to such in-jokes as "Roller Skating Mom Porn."

I had seen the movie, but the audio book was great - a great reader and just the right amount of plot-heavy movement that makes for a great audiobook. I find Ellroy's prose to be a bit much when I'm reading it, but put it in the mouth of an exceptional actor and...more

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Oct 24, 2008 Gemma rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't do it. I hate the jivey style-- it tries too hard. It is a parody of itself.

I know that white cops in the 50s were racist-- I get it-- but the racism is almost sadistic in this book. Like, did we really need all that detail? All those epithets? Really?

Maybe I started reading this under false pretenses. I was like "Old Hollywood! True crime! Pavement-pounding cops!" I love the idea of L.A. in the 50s, the seedy underbelly of all that glamor. I love crime writing, I love portraits of kill...more

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Jan 13, 2013 David Sprouse marked it as to-read · review of another edition

My favorite novel. The brilliant film adaption only skims the surface of this epic book. What sets Ellroy apart from other novelists is his plotting, no loose ends, everything fits into place, and his insanely catchy, often profane dialogue. For the first time he uses three protagonists, Ed Exley, Bud White, and Jack Vincennes. For those who have just seen the movie Vincennes and Exley will be truly introduced as three dimensional characters instead of props to serve the plot. Other pleasures, J...more

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Feb 06, 2008 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: ellroy completists

Shelves: audiorecordings, hardboiled-dicks

This is a review of the audio cassette, not the book. The book's pretty cool, okay?
The audio cassette is an abridged version of the book read by David Strathairn, and he does a pretty boring job. He reads at a very hurried, quick pace with nothing your brain pan can hold on to because it sounds so rushed. His voice is a very nasal monotone, too. How someone can make an exciting book sound dull is beyond me. If you see this tape at a yard sale, pass it by. If you see "White Jazz", however, jump...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Sam Reader rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

So the rundown is as follows: I love this book. I think it's one of the best crime novels I've ever read, and that James Ellroy, along with Raymond Chandler, is one of the few people who actually getsnoir. The characters and dialogue are definitely the high points of the work, as well as a plot that twists and turns in just the right way, so each new revelation drives home the point that everyone involved is in over their heads. It's a very dark, beautiful book about flawed characte

...more

So the rundown is as follows: I love this book. I think it's one of the best crime novels I've ever read, and that James Ellroy, along with Raymond Chandler, is one of the few people who actually gets noir. The characters and dialogue are definitely the high points of the work, as well as a plot that twists and turns in just the right way, so each new revelation drives home the point that everyone involved is in over their heads. It's a very dark, beautiful book about flawed characters trying to find a way to take out the worse people before they themselves are consumed. Ellroy has a good handle on the "shades of grey" areas, and while his heroes are not particularly sympathetic, they are compelling enough to care what happens to them and part of the fun of the book is how they grapple with their personal demons. Not that a book like LA Confidential should ever be considered "fun".

The downside is, the book is very dark and more than a little brutal. There's a lot of racist slurs bandied about, and some homophobic insults. All of this is presented without flinching or restraint, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. The book is about a case involving a brutal sextuple homicide, pornographic books, and stolen drugs. It handles it in the most direct and unflinching way possible, with all the language and graphic content that entails. That they had to rework a few sections of the plot to keep the film at an R rating says more than enough. While the language and content works for the time period and the atmosphere Ellroy wanted to evoke, it's still gonna be too much for some people.

More, as always, below.

"Some men get the world, some men get ex-hookers and a trip to Arizona. You're in the former, but my God I don't envy the blood on your conscience." - Lynn Bracken

"One in six. Where's the girl?" - Bud White

You may notice this week that the book I am reviewing is a crime novel and thus slightly outside my purview. There's a good reason for that. This is one of the best, if not the best (okay, outside the Philip Marlowe books) crime/noir novel I have ever read. Hands down. So without any further preamble, let's get right to it:

I found LA Confidential almost completely by accident. One spring, partly for nostalgia's sake, and partly because I hadn't been back since my favorite librarian's retirement party, I went back to the library down the street from where I grew up. Not much had changed in the time since I'd left...somehow, the selection was still better than the main branch of the library, though it was a much smaller space, but it was the same weird, intimate, welcoming place it had always been. It was like stepping back to a simpler, happier time in my life. And as I wandered through the adult section (a very small part of the library, all things considered), I happened to look down at a book with a bright red title along the spine: LA Confidential. After a quick check to make sure it wasn't a novelization of the movie, I took it out and opened it up on the way home.

And it is brilliant. The opening pages introduce the reader to the three policemen central to the investigation, all but one of them actually coming off sympathetic despite being very, very corrupt and not very nice people. The one exception is Edmund J. Exley, a by-the-book desk sergeant and war hero who comes off as morally more in the right, but antisocial and overly ambitious. And from these opening pages, it gets progressively dark and more twisted, and these tarnished heroes become both less and more sympathetic as they journey further down the spiral. And it was worth every second spent turning the pages to see exactly where the ride would go, how much nastier things could get.

LA Confidential introduces its three protagonists in very short order. Bud White is a brutal man, the kind who goes in punching and doesn't stop much to ask questions or hand out arrests. He also has a huge grudge against wife-beaters, usually punching them half-unconscious and then threatening them with monthly check-ups. Jack Vincennes is the classic Hollywood cop-- a man concerned with his image and "playing the game" with the higher-ups in the entertainment business. His routine tactic is to handle celebrity drug busts and make sure his friend who runs a local gossip rag gets a piece of the action, just to make an extra buck. And finally, there's Ed Exley, a hard-nosed by-the-book cop with ambition on his mind and an axe to grind with everyone corrupt in the city. Which turns out by the end of the first chapter of the first section of the book to be exactly everyone. The three men are first introduced to each other during an office Christmas party where Jack brings a case of booze, Bud drunkenly fights off a cop beater when the police decide to get handsy with a few penned-in suspects, and Exley gets locked in a supply closet, only to rat on them for the whole thing, The book shows the results of the "Bloody Christmas" scandal, and then jumps forward a year, with news clippings showing the aftermath.

And then things get twisted.

Vincennes gets put on the Administrative Vice desk for a year, where he starts to track a series of pornographic picture books with some very sick, very artistically-inclined smut. Exley makes detective but gets paired up with White to investigate a sextuple homicide in a diner before the whole mess blows up in the department's face. White, meanwhile, moonlights as an enforcer and muscle for a private squad who answers only to the enigmatic Dudley Smith, a high-ranking member of the LAPD with some serious ties to organized crime in Los Angeles (Spoilers be damned, if you make it through the prologue of the book, you know he's not a nice guy). But the cases, as they usually are in noir stories, are somehow connected, and before the end of the Nite Owl case, lives will be destroyed and people will die. Most of them not even the right people. If they expect to serve justice, the three of them will have to confront some very ugly things about both themselves and the beautiful town where they work.

Right off the bat, I'm going to say the thing I love the most is the characterization that goes into the book.Every character you meet is distinct, and they each have their own motivations. None of them are purely good or bad, sympathetic or unsympathetic...they're people. Which is exactly what characters should be. There shouldn't be definite "good guy" or "bad guy" crap...just people who do good things and bad things. Judging a character for their overall tally of good things said and done versus bad is bunk, we all know it's bunk, and LA Confidential wastes no time throwing it out the window. Our three main characters have good intentions, but do a lot of bad things. Conversely, the villains are some of the nicest, most respectable people you could ever meet...once you get past the fact that they're responsible for about half the crime in Los Angeles. Ellroy never treats his characters as heroes or villains or ideals...he just reports on what happens when they collide. And it's nice to see someone doing that, when these days I find myself inundated by people going "Why aren't more good guys good?"*

Each of the characters also serves to highlight the bad points about their individual archetypes. Bud is clearly the kind of cop who plays by his own rules, normally something that could be seen as heroic, but in the novel he is a brute who is given orders and suffers some severe repercussions for playing outside the box. Exley is the kind of ramrod-straight hero cop who could be called "lawful good", but the skeletons in his closet and the ruthless way he pursues regulation and promotion in the face of anything else makes him seem sort of villainous until he finally starts to figure out what's what. He has the longest character arc in the book, and that he grows a little by the end speaks to the strength of his character. And finally, Jack Vincennes is the typical sort of knight in tarnished armor tough-talking noir protagonist, atoning for his sins by shaking down Hollywood's best and most beautiful, but the cynical way he manipulates everyone for his own personal gain just to make rent and impress his girlfriend makes it tough to justify anything he does. It's a nice way of playing with the usual crime novel "types".

Next, the dialogue is fantastic. Ellroy manages to make his characters tough-talking without resorting to cliche, each character's speech pattern actually matching them pretty well. There are some genuinely witty lines, and some very well-hidden exposition in the tough talk, and the dialogue manages to match the tone, as well as keeping the story moving at a very quick pace. All of it feels natural, from Jack's slang-laden and clipped tones to Exley's very straightforward and condescending, overeducated lines. The one issue with the dialogue is that it is laden with homophobic, racist, and sexist slang. While this was probably par for the course in the time period, it's a little hard to get used to at first.

And finally, the plotline is a wonderful series of twists and hairpin turns that starts much differently than the traditional plot. In LA Confidential, upon reading the book, you are immediately greeted with a man on the run from the primary villain, who promptly shoots him in the head. Said villain's entrance is also a pretty obvious code for "villain", given that he arrives through a doorway wreathed in flame to kill his erstwhile henchman before the plot even starts. The rest of the book is the protagonists trying to figure out what the reader already knows, and the villains' increasing attempts to thwart them as seen with more stumbling blocks and dead ends the investigation hits. This does nothing to ratchet down the tension, in fact if anything it's ratcheted up as each new piece to the puzzle is added, the reader knowing how close the protagonist is to playing with fire.

There are two very obvious downsides to the book. First is the aforementioned dialogue issues. If you don't handle crude language well, this is not going to be the book for you. If you have problems with sex, violence, and drug use this may not be the book for you either. Second, in the middle section, the book drags a little. Not a lot, and it is all plot-important, it's just that with five hundred pages of a Los Angeles crime epic to get through, there's bound to be a slow bit here and there.

But if you can look past the period-appropriate and length-appropriate faults, there is a brilliant, dark book here. It is well worth your time, it is well worth a read, and it is something I should have bought, but instead simply take out of the library every few years to read and re-read. James Ellroy is someone who definitely gets it, and deserves if not your respect, your attention.

NEXT WEEK:

- Burton and Swinburne in The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man by Mark Hodder

AND AFTER THAT:

- Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks

- The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay

*Asking me this in real life is pretty much a way to get oneself trepanned, and we all know whatever comes after having a hole drilled into your skull isn't going to be pleasant. But macabre almost-humor aside, the argument against reductionism in fiction is another article in and of itself, one I'm gonna do eventually when I can't stand it any more.

Review first appeared on www.strangelibrary.com (less)

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Nov 11, 2012 Zalman rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Considerably less than awesome. I suppose I'm not into the genre (hardboiled dick novels?) as much as some, but I do know unimpressive writing when I read it: chaotic, repetitive, colorless with respect to description and dialog (except for endlessly repeated racial and sexual epithets, which I realize may be authentic period speech, but somewhat contrarily, perhaps, after the hundredth instance or so, start to suck any glimmer of real life out of the proceedings), utterly lacking in subtlety, w...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Robert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"In the tradition of Raymond Chandler's crime fiction comes this story of three tortured souls in the 1950s LAPD: a clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, his colleague who busts movie stars for payoffs from a sleazy magazine; and a detective haunted by the sight of his mother's murder. Intensity mounts as the novel's various plots intertwine more."

The movie is in my 'top 10 best movies' of all time...faithfully adapted from the book. Plot, characters, atmosphere, suspense,...more

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Jul 10, 2012 Jackie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another grab off of the free book swap heap. Snappily written in cop tongue; without a few seasons of The Wire under my belt I probably would have been lost. Kept up with it for a few days, as it paints a sharp picture of 1950s L.A. - the cops shoot surrendering criminals, the the African American part of the city is referred to as "Darktown" and the word "fruits" disparagingly flies around so often I finally understand why that is my grandmother's go-to word for gay people (it always just sound...more

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Sep 06, 2011 K Kamath rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The fiction I can think of, short-stories and novels, which is worse in prose than rendered on the screen includes, The Godfather, LA Confidential, The Duellists, possibly Ben-Hur. To Have and Have Not offers a case where the film shares the same title as the novella but is just different. One could argue that is true a lot, most movies are different from the literary sources, but to leave the thinking only that far would be a sign of mental laziness, a common condition among our contemporaries....more The fiction I can think of, short-stories and novels, which is worse in prose than rendered on the screen includes, The Godfather, LA Confidential, The Duellists, possibly Ben-Hur. To Have and Have Not offers a case where the film shares the same title as the novella but is just different. One could argue that is true a lot, most movies are different from the literary sources, but to leave the thinking only that far would be a sign of mental laziness, a common condition among our contemporaries. A bad piece of fiction in writing can become a great movie, the way a silly story set to great music turns into an opera and becomes an entertainment far better than its libretto.

The movie "L.A. Confidential" is not only structurally better conceived and rendered than the book, but also is informed by a more integrated and mature mind, ironically, ironic because a movie is, of course, collaborative, while most novels come from the mind of one person. In this case the book is a rambling farrago in need of editing. There are whole sections which are irrelevant either to the art or to the creation of verisimilitude. They are not even entertaining. They are just a waste of words. Sections presented as police reports, news reports, headlines. In a tighter work, those might function a useful alternative to narrative, description, dialogue, but mostly in this book they are superfluous. The are hundreds of pages which re-hash the same details which come out later and are repeated in unskilled prose, crude dialogue, to no esthetic effect. This book is the epitome of a kind of semiliterate writing for an audience that likes to read words and let words pass indiscriminately through its mind, "A page turner." It's okay not to pay attention, eyes passing over the sentences, flipping, skipping, not knowing some words or following the sense of the ideas. It will come out again later.

In addition to the use of devices which are not innovative or new and are handled clumsily like letters, reports, news articles, the sense of place and space and time is completely distorted. There is no operating principle behind the choice of one technique or another, and likewise no principle in the choice of whether the chapter breaks or the we stay with a character, or there's a break in the middle of the chapter, and the narrative of events in some places does not match any passage of actual time. An example of the last flaw, a character in Hollywood or downtown talks on the phone with another character in San Bernardino. One or two pages of dialog later, the distant character arrives at the station with a witness, and the only action in between is that short interrogation, a real-time bit of action which a reader understands. Phone call. Hang up. A conversation with no other time in between, no more than ten minutes, and suddenly the other guy on the phone is there. Even allowing for undescribed time, which is another noticeable reading experiential flaw, this would make a reader believe everywhere in the world is a short distance from everywhere else. Characters go from San Quentin to San Francisco back to LA in a time frame impossible even by private jet, and this is the 1950's, so it is noticeable and clearly just a case of an inept writer and an author with a sense of time and space verging on mental illness.

At some points we get minutiae of thoughts and impressions, and then there's unrelated details as a character again rushes here, there, drives to Lake Arrowhead, no break in the chapter, no break on the page. It's as if the author is just writing and has no idea of the conventions of fiction he's using. This is a professional writer, a successful writer, and he is completely inept. The chapters break and we move around from character to character, place to place, and there are huge leaps in the book from year to year in sections so labeled, but also time passes in the middle of section suddenly as if the character we're with just blacked out and came back suddenly somewhere else, sometimes with breaks in the prose, sometimes not. Bud White is at house in Los Angeles as a neighbor is getting milk, and then is suddenly at the Lake Arrowhead arriving as Lynn Bracken is out walking and Ed Exley has returned to his Los Angeles office. Bud reads Lynn's diary, then calls Ed downtown. They must have passed on the road, a comedic notion. Then after another little break in the prose, Bud is back in Chinatown rousting a junkie musician. There are no connecting descriptions of the significant drive time.

Whether the reader shares the impatience of the writer at those moments or not, the fictional time could be used to relate thoughts, feelings, etc., which are related in other places wastefully and without any concept of economy or even of coherent consciousness of character, psychology, flow of narrative events, you name it. Does the author believe readers share his interest in the stupid unnecessary sections which break up the flow of action and suspense for no apparent reason other than the author's whim? I don't think so. My impression is this guy is mentally ill and he just writes the way his readers read: Words on the page, sentences, look at me, I'm a writer, two more chapters before a do a line and jerk off to pornography. I think a lot of writers are like that.

Which brings us to Ellroy's telling choices of content suggestive of an abnormal interest in certain sexual possibilities, of peculiar relationships, and his own twisted psychology stuck onto characters at random without any idea of unity. Characters as disintegrated as his own writing style. Motive and intention are veneer thin. Isn't this supposed to be a police thriller? A TV crime show has more coherent notions of personality and psychology. Stereotypes would be a step up for this guy.

What fascinates me about this book, and The Godfather, is that other persons read it and extracted components to create something good in an even tighter narrative medium. I am also using the book to exercise my near vision. Too much computer time, reading too far away.

To be just, it is not that a dreadful piece of writing lacks moments of impact. This horrid work has little bits which are moving. But if I were to go into the choices, the proclivities of the author's psyche for subjects and sideshows, there would be no doubt, this man just needs help. His work is perhaps best described as a cry for help, not a desire for accolades.(less)

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Jul 28, 2011 Sean rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 08, 2011 Steven Belanger rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In terms of perfection, I give this one a slight nod over The Black Dahlia, and the only reason I can give you is that I got that feeling as I was reading it. You just get this strong sensation that you are reading something great, something unique that will stand as the best of its type. Perhaps some of it is in retrospect, as I finished this long ago, and certainly the excellent movie helps the idea. (The movie is perhaps a classic of its type as well.)

To give you an idea of how complex the pl...more

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Jan 01, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

James Ellroy effectively mixes a variety of styles (inner monologue, police reports, newspaper accounts) in the telling of his sprawling 1950s detective story. The short, staccato sentences that make up the bulk of the book effectively set up the subjective perspective that dominates the proceedings. As the chapters alternate between the three main characters, it becomes clear that the truth of the matter--truth that will eventually lead to absolute justice--continually eludes them. Each of the...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Andrew Russell rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2013, not-to-be-recommended

Some might say that the short, explosive phrases in this book lend themselves to the page turning experience of the crime genre. Not me. For me, this book had the potential for a great storyline that, through extremely poor writing, never quite made it.

The book had its moments but most of the time, trying to find the thread of the story was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, on a dark night, in the fog, blindfolded. Bloody difficult. Convolutedness for self indulgences sake rather than...more

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Aug 19, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, hard-boiled, pulp, detective, organized-crime, 1990s

I remember the movie from a while ago, and I do enjoy a good James Ellroy novel, so I was excited to read LA Confidential. To my surprised this book seems a bit all over the place, more so than usual and at times I struggled to keep up with what is happening. I know Ellroy likes to have a lot happening at his complex plots do come together but I did feel like it was a bit too much like a chore to keep up in this book.

LA Confidential is about organized crime, politics, corruption, drugs, pornogr...more

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May 11, 2010 James rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

I remember reading when the film was made that they never thought anything so complex could be succesfully made into a film and I now know what they mean. The film was complex and fantastic and the book is even more so.

We are taken on a journey to a slightly alternate 1950s where Walt Disney and his creations have been replaced by Raymond Dieterling and his creations. A seedy and corrupt 1950s LA is the backdrop for the story. The entire plot stems from a killing in a 24/7 Coffee shop called the...more

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Mar 25, 2008 Theo rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Racist slang ignorant, corruption ignorant people.

Recommended to Theo by: James H.

This book taught me a lot about racist slang and police corruption. I'm glad I don't live in L.A. anymore. I have problems with books that have a lot of characters. I'd like to think it's a mental disability so for those of you who want to call me your 'special friend' I'm used to it. My friend Nate's sister called me that in high school so I'm already use to it. I can see why J-Ho likes this book so much; it's like a Grand Theft Auto book.

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Apr 03, 2013 Odette rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gritty and dark doesn't begin to cover it; it was practically nihilistic. Compared to this, the movie was a Disney frolic.

It ends with Dudley Smith still on the loose - partying, actually - and Exley prematurely aged and all alone, having inadvertently caused the death of his father and the rape victim Inez. Vincennes is a drug addict and porn addict, until he bites it (in a shootout, not a key plot moment with Smith). Bud White comes across, weirdly, as more innocent and secretly upright than...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another sordid mystery in the L.A. Quartet. There are so many characters and intrigues that it can be overwhelming, but it is an entertaining read. With the butchered corpses, drugs, and corruption, it has some similar themes to The Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere. I feel I had a better prediction of how this went, but even then the plots became incredibly convoluted, although in a positive surprising way rather than a pulled-out-of-thin-air deus ex machina way.

I'm glad I didn't remember the m...more

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Jul 02, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It should be noted this is a genre book, that the dark and twisted streets here aren't for everyone. If as a child you weren't willing to poke corpses with a stick or pick up rocks to watch the squirming, seething masses of insects swarm - maybe you should pass on Ellroy.

Darker than dark, Ellroy's noir makes other noir books look like silver in comparison. He's true to his era - go watch some movies from the 50s if you don't agree. I'll wait. See how the slang was different? Yeah, that happens.

A...more

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Jun 30, 2010 Taka rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: detective-crime_fiction, japan_jul07-aug10

Intense and complex--

James Ellroy keeps you on the toe with constant tension and a complex plot with awesome twists. This one was no exception, and I liked it more than his earlier The Black Dahlia whose long prelude I thought was irrelevant and unnecessary.

Ellroy's style in this book becomes choppy and shows the first signs of what the critics call his "telegraphic" prose style. Most sentences don't have verbs and only paint significant details in their raw noun form. It's quite fresh, sometime...more

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Jul 14, 2009 Pam rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dumped

I bought this book because it was on the "If you liked ... you'd like this" feature at Amazon. The book that got me there was Clockers by Richard Price (awesome book!) so I was psyched.

I managed a few chapters and gave up on it. I can't get a feel for the characters, time, or place. It's jerky, disjointed, unfocused, and hard to read.

If someone tells me it's worth it and to try again, I will.

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Apr 13, 2011 Arun Divakar rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's a little boy's dream : grow up and become a Cop. Beat up the bad guys, Shoot'em up, walk around in uniform. The little boys grow up, they see the real life cops and the dreams begin to fade and lose color. It's probably a life of dealing with what society calls scum that pushes many men over the edge into corruption and outright thuggery. L.A. Confidential is cops, all about cops and nothing but cops.

There is a heinous crime which acts as the fulcrum and the entire story revolves around it....more

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May 30, 2010 Ardee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fantastic crime thriller, with a beautifully written cast of flawed and complex characters.

As with many of Ellroys novels the characters are often unsympathetic, brutish and dishonest, but he manages to round them out so perfectly, that they always come off believable. It's the same with the tone. Some readers find it off putting an jarring, however, because it is done so consistently throughout not just La Confidential, but all of the LA Quartet novels, it rings very true to me. It may not be...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Phil Mc rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Third of the quartet and the best by far (or perhaps I mean so far).

It’s immensely satisfying to follow the genesis of a writer’s craft through a series of novels and Confidential clearly marks the near perfection of his style. It seems as though Ellroy misunderstood what made The Black Dahlia great when writing the second novel, focusing on the gore and horror of the crimes more than the characters, giving it an uncomfortable feel and leaving some decent characters at the periphery of the narr...more Third of the quartet and the best by far (or perhaps I mean so far).

It’s immensely satisfying to follow the genesis of a writer’s craft through a series of novels and Confidential clearly marks the near perfection of his style. It seems as though Ellroy misunderstood what made The Black Dahlia great when writing the second novel, focusing on the gore and horror of the crimes more than the characters, giving it an uncomfortable feel and leaving some decent characters at the periphery of the narrative. Similarly, TBD’s characterisation is less complex than we find in either of the subsequent two. Both are good novels; both are engaging and interesting. Neither hit the heights of Confidential.

The crimes of Confidential are numerous, tasteless and impossibly complex, as are the sub-plots, characters and language. It is impressive, bordering on the amazing, that Ellroy can draw such similar yet fundamentally different characters across this series. At no point does it feel as if we’re reading the same old hackneyed stereotypes; rather, we’re seeing a series of distinct productions from the same social background. In short: real (and horrifying) people.

The plot/sub-plot/sub-sub-plot/etc that these multifarious characters drive and inhabit is/are incredibly complex and it would be easy is to get lost in the labyrinthine layers of deceit Ellroy weaves; however, he never allows the pertinent to go un-flagged by allowing his characters thoughts to intersect the narrative as it moves forward significantly. This can, at times, make the prose jarring and disjointed but it perfectly represents both ours and the characters whirling confusion as each twist hits.

If there is a down-side to this novel, it is the lack of a genuinely satisfying conclusion. Clearly we’re meant to wait for the final instalment. To be honest, I don’t mind because I can’t imagine not reading it next anyway. If the upward trend of the quartet continues, it will be awesome (in the literal sense of the word).
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Aug 02, 2009 Meghan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading this made me appreciate just how good a job the screenwriters did when adapting it for film. Don't get me wrong, the book is good--suspenseful, expansive, a proper *big* novel--but it feels, particularly at the end, like everything including the bloodied kitchen sink has gone into it. Drugs? Check. Prostitution? Check. Child molesters, women haters, police corruption, organised crime, Los Angeles highway system? Cheeeeck. Also, a few of the characters feel like near-carbon copies of each...more

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May 16, 2012 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The third book in the L.A. Quartet, L.A. Confidential, has been hailed by critics as one of seminal works of neo-noir. Published in 1990, it was Ellroy’s coming out party as a force to be reckoned with in the genre and the dawn of a new generation in crime fiction. Why? Because it’s that freaking good. It’s also because, at the time it was published, no one had ever written a book quite like it. The style is dense and clipped with abbreviated sentences trimmed down to only the essential elements...more

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May 27, 2011 CC rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I've read it before; I love reading it again. This book forever grabs me by the neck, and I will tell you why: I don't read it for the color (which is great), for the plots (which are labyrinthine and a touch confusing) or even the immersion into a world which Ellroy is a master at. I read for the characters, and this book has possibly my favourite character of all time: Edmund Jennings Exley. The man is an amalgam of everything real men are: at turns hard, calculating, crazy, desperate. He's a...more

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L.A. Confidential (L.A. Quartet #3)

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