Hey everyone, it's my 100th review on goodreads!!!!!! No, wait, this is a dark and brooding noir. Can't be that happy. Think mean thoughts. Take a shot glass of despair, with a nihilistic chaser and a cheap cigarette. There we go.Spanning from 1950 to 58, L.A. Confidential stands as easily the most ambitious book in Ellroy’s series thus far.It’s Christmas time and that does not mean heart-warming cups of good cheer and old Scrooge being visited by three ghosts in Ellroy’s work. “Bud looked out ...

In the aftermath of the Bloody Christmas, the lives of three cops are forever entwined; Ed Exley, the by the book cop who is forever in his father's shadow, glory hound Jack Vincennes, and Bud White, the man forever avenging his dead mother. After six people are killed in the Nite Owl Massacre, can the three men co-exist working the same case or will they all go down in flames?L.A. Confidential is an epic crime tale spanning nearly a decade, a tale of corruption, greed, drugs, pornography, and m...

L.A. Confidential feels like the book that James Ellroy has been preparing for and working up to during his entire career up to this point. He takes all of the themes he explored in previous novels and packs them into a book that's an even larger, more epic tale of crime, perversion, and Hollywood corruption than any of his previous books. L.A. Confidential tells the story of three LAPD officers who are initially at odds with one another after the infamous Bloody Christmas police brutality scand...

"Whatever you desire." "...safe passage for ruthless men in love."Like Fight Club, 'L.A. Confidential' is one of those contemporary novels that provides a certain literary difficulty for readers who come to it AFTER the film dropped because the directors (David Fincher, Curtis Hanson) created such large, iconic images out of the novels. L.A. Confidential's major characters are all very similar to the movie, but there are some major omissions and changes made in the movie that keep Elloroy's urte...

This L.A. set, ultra-dark, detailed, complex and completely riveting police conspiracy thriller set mostly in the 1950s centres round the 'Night Owl' coffee house murders of six customers. The story is founded on a devastating police abuse of power that involves the three main (police) protagonists who have enmity for each other before the aforementioned murders. Story asides, what makes this book standout is taking Noir to extremes never taking before, or debatably since! It's written in second...

Extraordinaria novela.Los personajes y la ambientación son fantásticos.Después de Chandler, Ellroy está en la cumbre en cuanto a plasmar la vida y la muerte en Los Ángeles y todo su mundo.A diferencia de la película, al final, la acción transcurre bastantes años después. En cambio, en la película, es cuestión de días. Esos años hicieron que, en cierta manera, me desconectara un poco de la trama.Extraordinary novel. The characters and setting are fantastic. After Chandler, Ellroy is at the top of...

Even when ya know the plot from the movie it’s still riveting!

(anche in rilettura si conferma il mio Ellroy preferito)Bisogna essere in perfetta forma per leggere questo libro: occhi, cuore, cervello, fiato, nervi, fegato, stomaco. Ambientato nella Los Angeles degli anni ’50, è un romanzo intricatissimo, con una trama principale e decine di sottotrame che si intersecano, con tre protagonisti e una miriade di comprimari (poliziotti, gangster, divi del cinema, giornalisti, puttane, spacciatori, ecc.). Non affezionatevi troppo a qualcuno di loro, potrebbe ess...

We’ve all heard of the Good-Cop/Bad-Cop routine, but when you read a James Ellroy novel it’s more like Bad-Cop/Worse-Cop/Crimes-Against-Humanity-Cop.This third installment in the L.A. Quartet introduces us to another trio of police officers who wouldn't last ten minutes on the job if there were smart phones in the 1950s which could have recorded their many misdeeds. Ed Exley is a brilliant detective, but his physical cowardice is exceeded only by his ruthless ambition. Bud White is a thug who ne...

NERO NOIRKim Basinger modello Veronica Lake. Un giro di squillo di lusso, che dopo una ripassata a una clinica di Malibu escono identiche alle dive del cinema: ci sono una Ava Gardner, una Rita Hayworth, una Betty Grable. E c’è soprattutto una Veronica Lake.Ecco un romanzo che deve aver richiesto al suo autore memoria, concentrazione, riepilogo, una parete, ma anche due o tre, piene di post-it per annotare e collegare personaggi, trame e sotto-trame, per non perdersi fatti episodi e dettagli, pe...