Another birthday present and a huge book at 700 pages. Quite a strange concept – blending real characters, as he often does, with fictional ones, but here a pre-history of some of the characters in the 'LA Quartet'.
So Lee Blanchard, Bucky Bleichert and their ‘lover’ Kay Lake from 'The Black Dahlia', and Dudley Smith and Claire De Haven from 'The Big Nowhere' appear, along with lots of minor characters, but earlier in time than those books (important for Blanchard as he is murdered in the Dalia).
The prose is as improvised and splenetic as most Ellroy books; the plot absolutely huge (Hollywood just after Pearl Harbour – yanks, chinese and japanese all battling it out for the spoils that the US and the new world order will offer when one or other WW2 power block – capitalism or Jew inspired communism – triumph.
Pretty good – one to re read on a holiday beach if it will fit in the suitcase!
Comments