L.A. Confidential
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season496 pages, about 10 hours: the length of 1.6 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbA corrupt ex-cop’s shootout comes first, then the 1951 Bloody Christmas police-beating scandal launches the main case.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesA 1998 World Socialist Web Site review finds Ellroy short of Chandler, and an Ask MetaFilter noir thread names Hammett’s Red Harvest.
The case for it
on the puzzle
“an intricate mystery that fits together neatly at the end”
five stars · a book blog on 1950s Los Angeles
“sucked me so far down the rabbit hole of Ellroy’s 1950s Los Angeles”
a book blog on the three detectives
“The relationship between Bud White, Jack Vincennes and Ed Exley form a nexus”
a book blog on the length
“a lesser author would have needed at least double that amount to fill it”
a book blog
The case against
on the prose style
“The rat-a-tat style can be headache-inducing”
Kirkus Reviews, 1990 on the subplots
“the interest fades in the face of endless and unlikely subplots”
David Walsh · World Socialist Web Site, 1998 on the pacing
“I felt the story was repeating itself too much”
three stars · a book blog on the cast size
“even the characters sometimes have to create graphs to keep track of everything”
a book blog
