James Ellroy is een meester in het hardboiled misdaadgenre, bekend om zijn kenmerkende telegrafische stijl die onnodige woorden weglaat en vaak zinsfragmenten gebruikt. Zijn werken staan bekend om hun duistere humor, dichte plotontwikkeling en een meedogenloos pessimistische kijk op de wereld. Ellroy duikt in de weergave van Amerikaans autoritarisme, wat hem de bijnaam de "Demonenhond van de Amerikaanse misdaadfictie" heeft opgeleverd. Zijn romans worden geprezen om hun scherpe blik op de schaduwkanten van de samenleving en hun onmiskenbare stilistische urgentie, die de lezer meesleept in een draaikolk van spanning en cynisme.
'Gedumpt' vertelt opnieuw het verhaal van een moord op een jonge vrouw: Betty Jean Scales. Het is het adembenemende relaas van twee mannen, een schrijver en een detective, in hun hongerige zoektocht naar gerechtigheid. CPNB Maand van het spannende boek 1998.
The Black Dahlia depicts the infrastructure of L.A.'s most sensational murder case. A young cop morphs into the obsessed lover and lust-crazed avenger. His rogue investigation is a one-way ticket to hell
The Big Nowhere: In 1950s LA three men are drawn into the shadow of communist witch hunts and violent killings that force each one to confront his own personal darkness. Three of the most epic and powerful crime novels ever written, this volume is an explosive journey through the dark side of recent American history, and crime writing at its best.
"America was never innocent." Thus begins the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy. It's James Ellroy's pop history of the 1960s, his window-peeper's view of government misconduct, his dirty trickster's take on the great events of an incendiary era. It's a tour de force of the American idiom, and an acknowledged masterpiece. American Tabloid gives us Jack Kennedy's ride, seen from an insider's perspective. We're there for the rigged 1960 election. We're there for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. We're the eyes and ears and souls of three rogue cops who've signed on for the ride and come to see Jack as their betrayer. We're Jack's pimps and hatchet men, and we're there for that baroque slaying in Dallas.The Cold Six Thousand takes us from Dallas to Vietnam to Memphis to the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. We're rubbing shoulders with RFK and MLK, calamitous klansmen, noted mafiosi. We're forced to relive the American sixties--and we come away breathless.The first two books of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy revisit the most anarchic decade in our history. They are defined by their brutal linguistic flair and reckless panache.
The Black Dahlia depicts the infrastructure of L.A.'s most sensational murder case. White Jazz gives us the tortured confession of a cop who's gone to the bad - killer, slum landlord and parasitic exploiter.
This time the ride takes us from Dallas to Vietnam to Las Vegas to Memphis to Cuba to the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in L.A. A kid private eye clashes with a mob goon and an enforcer for FBI director Edgar Hoover in L.A.
This novel is set in Los Angeles, the city of angels that has become the city of the Angel of Death. It is about communist witch-hunts and about insanely violent killings which are terrorising the community.
A novel of the Kennedy era, portraying the president in a far from flattering light. There are three protagonists: a CIA agent who pimps for JFK, another agent who trains anti-Castro rebels, and a lawyer who is a Mafia hunter. Through their eyes are seen the conflicting interests of the Kennedys, the director of the FBI, organized crime, organized labor, Castro and Cuban exiles.
It is Christmas, 1951, Los Angeles. A city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals, six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three L.A.P.D. detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers
Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals. Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers. The novel takes these cops on a sprawling epic of brutal violence and the murderous seedy side of Hollywood. One of the best crime novels ever written, it is the heart of Ellroy's four-novel masterpiece, the LA Quartet, and an example of crime writing at its most powerful.
