James Ellroy

'Not for the Faint of Heart... A Big, Powerful Crime Novel'

L. A. Confidential

Rowan Myers

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.

As a fan of minimalism, I didn't find the sentence structure choppy at all. Like the faux magazine inserts put into the pages, like the catchphrase for Dragnet (the TV show that Badge of Honor so brilliantly spoofs) - just the facts, ma'am.

Some writers ask their readers to take a certain amount of responsibility while they read their books. You're following their car, and they assume you're smart enough and fast enough to keep up. And if you're not, you probably shouldn't be on this ride. There's taxi services you can call. So yes, if you don't want to keep up with a web as tangled as any spider's, this book isn't for you. But if you want to go on the adventure with him (I took notes while I read and made my own outline) - Ellroy will make sure that he swings past some of the darker scenery while he shows you around LA.

Sian Wadey

I had read Ellroy's The Black Dahlia as part of my A-Z of authors and I really enjoyed the style of his writing. 
I wanted to watch the film of L.A. Confidential but my policy is always to read the book first so I ordered it off Amazon and waited until the time was right.
I enjoy being sucked into Ellroy's noir world, but as it says on the cover 'not for the feint-hearted' and you need to be in the right frame of mind to cope with the bad language and the constant violence.
The story follows three policemen, Bud White, Ed Exley and Jack Vincennes. White to all intents and purposes is a thug, fighting and murdering his way through L.A. Exley is a police poster boy and does whatever he can to get to the top, but he is disliked intensely by his peers. Vincennes is hiding a lot of secrets but is enjoying his fame as a police consultant on TV programme Badge of Honour. All of them are vastly different, and it's their sparring that makes for an interesting read. They're also greatly flawed and I can't say I particularly sympathised with any of them but I wanted to follow their story to it's conclusion.
The reader is plunged into the deep end with a riot in the police cells at Christmas. Several police officers go to town on their prisoners fuelled with drugs and drink. Exley takes the stand against them and they're scattered far and wide working for different divisions. All of them are working on different cases, the massacre of The Nite Owl, books of torture porn, the rape and murder of a prostitute. And as always in Ellroy's world, everything seems to come together.
I love the author's characterisation, the style of his descriptions and the language he uses is excellent. I really felt part of this world he has created. But sometimes, because of that, the facts for me get muddled and I have to reread things to ensure that I have understood what's going on or that I haven't missed a major plot point.
I will definitely read some more of James Ellroy, but I think I'll give my brain some time to recover from the macabre and the language.

L. A. Confidential 'Not for the Faint of Heart... A Big, Powerful Crime Novel'

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