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James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown, Hollywood Babylon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D.: Ed Exley, the clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, a legendary cop in the same department; Jack Vincennes, a cop who advises a Police Squad- like TV show and busts movie stars for payoffs from sleazy Hush-Hush magazine; and Bud White, a detective haunted by the sight of his dad murdering his mom.
Ellroy himself was traumatized as a boy by his party-animal mother's murder. (See his memoir My Dark Places for the whole sordid story.) So it is clear that Bud is partly autobiographical. But Exley, whose shiny reputation conceals a dark secret, and Vincennes, who goes showbiz with a vengeance, reflect parts of Ellroy, too.
L.A. Confidential holds enough plots for two or three books: the cops chase stolen gangland heroin through a landscape littered with not-always-innocent corpses while succumbing to sexy sirens who have been surgically resculpted to resemble movie stars; a vile developer--based (unfairly) on Walt Disney-- schemes to make big bucks off Moochie Mouse; and the cops compete with the crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent. Ellroy's hardboiled prose is so compressed that some of his rat-a-tat paragraphs are hard to follow. You have to read with attention as intense as his—and that is very intense indeed. But he richly rewards the effort. He may not be as deep and literary as Chandler, but he belongs on the same top-level shelf.
From Publishers Weekly
Ellroy's ninth novel, set in 1950s Los Angeles, kicks off with a shoot-out between a rogue ex-cop and a band of gangsters fronted by a crooked police lieutenant. Close on the heels of this scene comes a jarring Christmas Day precinct house riot, in which drunk and rampaging cops viciously beat up a group of jailed Mexican hoodlums. But, as readers will quickly learn, these sudden sprees of violence, laced with evidence of police corruption, are only teasers for the grisly events and pathos that follow this intricate police procedural. Picking up where The Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere left off, the book tracks the intertwining paths of the three flawed and ambitious cops who emerge from the "Bloody Christmas" affair. Dope peddling, prostitution, and other risky business are revealed as the tightly wound plot untangles. Ellroy's disdain for Hollywood tinsel is evident at every turn; even the most noble of the characters here are relentlessly sleazy. But their grueling, sometimes maniacal schemes make a compelling read for the stout of heart.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Noir saga with mythic journey at its heart,
By
This review is from: L.A. Confidential (Paperback)
It's a spider web. It's a labyrinth, and the minotaur at its heart is both a psychotic murderer and the central selves of its three main characters. As a surface read, this novel is a stellar exemplar of the noir California genre. The Los Angeles it conjures up is both a nightmare and a reality (Johnny Stompanato, the gangster lover of Lana Turner, is a character, and his murder by Turner's daughter provides a final knife-twist in the plot). Ellroy's dark city exhibits more seething, foul vice crawling over itself than I have ever encountered between the covers of one book. Yet it turns out to be about the ultimate redemption, or at least coming to terms with self, of the three primary characters. Ed Exley, a privileged son whose apparently burnished war record is a sham; Jack Vincennes, whose weakness for pills and booze has led him into a shameful error he can't shake; and Bud White, who is trying to overcome his powerlessness to prevent his mother's brutal murder by finding wife-beaters and rapists and punishing them all to a bloody pulp. This trio of damaged and damaging cops all converge on an insanely ramified late night slaying at the Nite Owl cafe. It lines to prostitution, drugs, plastic surgery as a racket, harder than hard-core porn, organized crime, blackmail, extortion, and a host of petty and major criminals both inside the LAPD and outside. Ultimately, though, the lines go way further back by 35 years, to a series of child murders done to create a grotesque little eros--a thing composed of the wings of birds and parts of children. This horrific image should tip you off--you are in the presence of something more epic and mythic than mere noir. What these policemen are searching for and combating is the destruction of innocence and love--their own innocence and ability to love as well as the long-dead children. Ultimately, despite distrust, rivalry and even hatred, they combine forces and experience to untangle the whole ghastly mess. Vincennes dies redeemed by full confession to his loving wife, Bud pushes through tremendous temptations to succumb to Neanderthal violence to actually use his mind to fight evil, and Exley confronts his own and his father's secrets. The psychotic murderer at the root of it all proves to have been the kind of monster we keep inside ourselves--repeatedly altered by plastic surgery and imperfectly controlled by drugs, he keeps destroying until he is unmasked and dis-enabled. Finally--this IS a noir novel--the consciously wicked man remains standing, and powerful, at the close. Read it if you can. It's a hell of a trip to redemption.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
The underside of 50's Los Angeles,
By
This review is from: L.A. Confidential (Paperback)
James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is a facinating look at Los Angeles in the 50's as seen through the intertwining stories of three LAPD cops. Plot and style are very much in the hard-boiled tradition. However Ellroy's clipped narrative style takes a bit of getting used to. As good as the book is, this is one of the few instances where the movie is better than the film. Mainly because the plot in the movie is much tighter and the ending more satisfying.
4.0 out of 5 stars
`Opportunities fall easy - you pay for them later.',
By J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: L.A. Confidential (Paperback)
This novel is the third in James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, and is set in Los Angeles in the period between 1951 and 1958. The story involves three LAPD officers: Wendell `Bud' White, a quick -tempered and quick- fisted enforcer; Jack Vincennes, working in narcotics and recovering from substance abuse; and Edmund `Ed' Exley an ambitious decorated war veteran and college graduate. Bud is looking for vengeance: he has an especial hatred of wife beaters. Jack likes the spotlight: he's involved as a technical advisor on the TV hit show `Badge of Honor' and he also feeds breaking stories to the local tabloid press - for a price. Ed wants to make a name for himself and to impress his father - himself a former LA Detective who is now in the construction business.Early in the novel, a police brutality case provides Ed Exley with an opportunity to make a name for himself but by testifying against other police officers he makes enemies as well as some powerful friends. Bud White is one of those enemies after his partner is sacked, and Jack Vincennes is moved from Narcotics to Administrative Vice. A bloody massacre at the Nite Owl Café is the case that involves all three of the men, and reveals systemic corruption in their own precinct. Solving the case involves a journey through organised crime, political corruption, drug trafficking, pornography, prostitution and institutional racism. Finding out the truth has a cost, as Vincennes, Exley and White discover while pursuing different investigations associated with the case. I enjoyed this novel, with all of its twists and turns. I recommend reading the novels in order as each novel builds on the story of its predecessors. James Ellroy's Los Angeles is a bleak, nasty, sleazy place peopled with opportunistic and flawed people. Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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