Product Description:

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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: 4.45 out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Sergeant Edmund J. Exley
In the MOVIE adaptation, the character of Bud White, the "thug"-cop who is only half-intelligent (in detective work, I mean) and prefers "speaking" with his fists, is given prominence as the "bigger" hero while the other 2 good cops, Ed Exley and Jack Vincennes appear to be more in supporting roles. But if you have read the BOOK, you will know (and appreciate) who the real hero is - yes, Ed Exley - the neat, bespectacled, rich-kid, straight-arrow cop. Note also that the cover of the book (rightly) features the figure of Exley (and not Bud White) in a scene taken from the movie.

I loved the movie and have watched it many times (on video, cable TV and now DVD), but I love the book a million times more. The story is so original and exciting. The praise by "The Village Voice" (as printed ... Read More

Rating:

- Flawed, but intelligent and gripping crime drama
Set in the dark, bloody atmosphere of 1950's Los Angeles, James Ellroy's "L.A. Confidential" is a brutal, harsh, unsettling, disturbing, confusing, intelligent, and, ultimately, masterful crime drama. The plot is a thickly layered story involving three detectives, Edmund Exley, Wendell (Bud) White, and John Vincennes, and their exploits considering their own lives during the timeframe of the novel. The plot also revolves around the slayings of six people at the Nite Owl, a diner whose infamy spreads throughout the course of the novel. This is just one of many different plots that intertwine to make an incredibly complex novel, filled with hundreds of characters rich in depth and characterization.

Ellroy's genius lies in his development of plot and characters. This novel is wildly ... Read More

Rating:

- The underside of 50's Los Angeles
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.

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