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L.A. Confidential | |||
L.A. Confidential |
Los Angeles, 1953: six innocent people gunned down at an all-night diner. Three policemen arrive to investigate: Ed Exley, goaded by his father's success on the force, burning to eclipse him; Bud White, witness to his mother's murder, a time bomb with a badge; and Jack Vincennes, former addict, a shake-down artist who works celebrities. Worse yet, these three see themselves as rivals. Their own rage mirrors that of the killers they seek, all players in a game without rules or survivors.
"James Ellroy is a fictional sculptor who carves a universe without beauty, laughter or remorse. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL is his finest work yet." (People) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
作者简介 James Ellroy was born in 1948 in Los Angeles, the city that has served as the inspiration for his acclaimed crime novels. His L.A. Quartet novels-The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz-are international bestsellers. His most recent novel, American Tabloid, was TIME magazine's novel of the year for 1995. His memoir, My Dark Places, was a New York Times notable book and a TIME magazine best book of the year for 1996. He lives in Kansas City.
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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 hisand 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.