The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

This is the thread for spoiler comments when discussing L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

Ffs, where does one begin? One of the best dark detective noirs I’ve ever read! But it’s totally insane, of course.

: D

it's so twisted! Are you going to go on to White Jazz? That gets really bizarre.

I was not posting because the other thread was becoming an echo chamber with no one else commenting. And I wanted to finish White Jazz before I commented but I won't have enough time to get to it this month.

Anyway the ending was a bit weaker than the last two entries in the series. For the first 80%-85% I thought this would be among the best crime books of all time (think Mystic River, The Long Goodbye, a couple of Robicheaux books or even The Big Nowhere) but then it faltered. The serial killer from Exley's past became the endgame instead of exposing Dudley. It sort of came out of nowhere and was the second unrelated serial killer of the narrative after Deuce Perkins.

Dudley is the best villain in crime fiction. Random serial killer who is introduced at the very end can't measure up to Dudley. It almost seemed Ellroy decided to squeeze another book out of Dudley and Dudley's fate in White Jazz is underwhelming if I remember correctly.

The Exley-Dudley rivalry never getting a proper end is one of the biggest misses in crime fiction history. Exley turns into a lead and gets a great arc but the rest of the ensemble and the book as a whole suffers at the end. So while I bumped up The Big Nowhere to 5/5 from 4/5 while rereading the series, I will probably keep this at 4. That's a shame as at its best, LA Confidential's brilliance is unparalleled.

Ohh and I did not know Lana Turner's daughter really killed Johnny Stampanto, I checked it on a whim and found out that it was true. She confessed to killing him because he brutally abused her mother. The other rumor that often makes an appearance throughout the series is Robert Mitchum having a drug habit, have not found a source to confirm it but almost every actor from that era had one, so probably true.

Now has anyone found any similarity between Walt Disney and his obvious surrogate Raymond Dieterling?

I wondered if Walt Disney really was involved in some way with similar crimes as well. Mitchum really was arrested for marijuana possession.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...

Nancy wrote: "it's so twisted! Are you going to go on to White Jazz? That gets really bizarre."

Yes!

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I wondered if Walt Disney really was involved in some way with similar crimes as well. Mitchum really was arrested for marijuana possession.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-h......"

Ohh thanks for the info, criminalizing cannabis is unfortunate, luckily USA has mostly moved on from doing it.

This book went totally off the rails for me at the end, it was like the author went for the most wild ending - three suicides, and of those people!?!?!?!?!? I mean, so whack, I started guffawing. But I still loved the novel, omg.

Not to mention Raymond’s choice of sons to kill, it was like a really bent Sophie's Choice, again I was guffawing. You have to give Ellroy points for twisted humor, he is a playful guy.

I have met some rich entrepreneurs, and I agree with Ellroy - he knows them like I knew them - maybe not murderous, but definitely with weird cracks in their mental processes that are beyond the normal weirdnesses.

Yeah the suicides and Raymond's choice to kill his legitimate son over his serial killing bastard could have used a bit more buildup. As I said it almost seems like Ellroy reached the last part and was I like I can keep this thing going for another book, forget Dudley, forget, White and Trashcan Jack let's just dwell on Exley's screwed up family and acquaintances. A weird detour.

Pity because Ellroy is actually pretty good at making the motivation behind serial killing completely plausible, as he did in the first two books in the series.

I hope his other books are better than this one. I had a very hard time getting through it. Factor in that every few pages I was reading passages over and over.

Linda wrote: "I hope his other books are better than this one. I had a very hard time getting through it. Factor in that every few pages I was reading passages over and over."

Not really, many consider this one his best book. If you found nothing to enjoy here, I don't think you will enjoy Ellroy unless most of your problems were related to the corrupted ebook file with formatting errors.

I am not sure how I feel about this book. It’s so much going on and so twisted... but I don’t engage.

Patricia wrote: "I am not sure how I feel about this book. It’s so much going on and so twisted... but I don’t engage."

It is a common reaction to Ellroy, he is unbearably dark for some.