Crimewave - James Ellroy

Crime Wave returns James Ellroy to his familiar territory of LA, usually in the 1950s. It consists of reportage and short fiction, all originally published in the American GQ magazine. Ellroy's reportage is occasionally slightly frustrating, as he is obsessed primarily with unsolved murder cases (his mother's unsolved murder in 1958 still haunts him), so although his prose is always worth reading, the pieces lack a sense of closure. His novels often leave loose ends to be tied up in a sequel, but the reader is always left with the sense that justice has been done, which you don't get here. Similarly, although his essay about the ...

It’s a problem that Joseph Heller’s struggled with since ‘Catch 22’ – how do you top something that’s monumental, seminal and so brilliant it redefines an entire genre? Let’s face it, the likes of you and I are never going to have to grapple with this one, but it’s one that Mr James Ellroy seems to be having trouble with right now. Having produced the nightmarish, twisted vision that is the LA Quartet, he’s now faced with the task of writing something to match it. And, like Joseph Heller before him, he’s having trouble hitting his game. After the detour that was ‘American Tabloid’, ...