While LA Confidential is the third in Ellroy's so-called LA quartet (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz), it reads as a powerful stand-alone novel. Essentially, it is the tale of corrupt cops in a corrupt city (1950s LA), but the style of the telling makes it much more than that. Ellroy's prose is so densely packed that you realise every sentence, every paragraph, is crammed with meaning. An additional layer of meaning is created by the way in which real, historical events and characters (for example, the so-called Nite Owl shooting, around which the plot rotates, is a real event, Johnny Stompanato, hood-cum-lover of ...  Read the complete review