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James Ellroy
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L.A. Confidential Paperback – September 1, 1997

by James Ellroy (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,542 ratings
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L.A. Confidential is epic "noir", a crime novel of astonishing detail and scope written by the bestselling author of The Black Dahlia. A horrific mass murder invades the lives of victims and victimizers on both sides of the law. And three lawmen are caught in a deadly spiral, a nightmare that tests loyalty and courage, and offers no mercy, grants no survivors.
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Previous page
  1. Book 3 of 4
    L.A. Quartet
  2. Print length
    496 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Grand Central Publishing
  5. Publication date
    September 1, 1997
  6. Dimensions
    5.25 x 1.75 x 8 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0446674249
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0446674249
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is film-noir crime fiction akin to Chinatown, Hollywood Babylon, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and Jim Thompson. It's about three tortured souls in the 1950s L.A.P.D.: Ed Exley, the clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, a legendary cop in the same department; Jack Vincennes, a cop who advises a Police Squad- like TV show and busts movie stars for payoffs from sleazy Hush-Hush magazine; and Bud White, a detective haunted by the sight of his dad murdering his mom.

Ellroy himself was traumatized as a boy by his party-animal mother's murder. (See his memoir My Dark Places for the whole sordid story.) So it is clear that Bud is partly autobiographical. But Exley, whose shiny reputation conceals a dark secret, and Vincennes, who goes showbiz with a vengeance, reflect parts of Ellroy, too.

L.A. Confidential holds enough plots for two or three books: the cops chase stolen gangland heroin through a landscape littered with not-always-innocent corpses while succumbing to sexy sirens who have been surgically resculpted to resemble movie stars; a vile developer--based (unfairly) on Walt Disney-- schemes to make big bucks off Moochie Mouse; and the cops compete with the crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent. Ellroy's hardboiled prose is so compressed that some of his rat-a-tat paragraphs are hard to follow. You have to read with attention as intense as his—and that is very intense indeed. But he richly rewards the effort. He may not be as deep and literary as Chandler, but he belongs on the same top-level shelf.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing (September 1, 1997)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0446674249
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0446674249
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1.75 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,542 ratings

About the author

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James Ellroy

James Ellroy

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James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the acclaimed L.A. Qurtet - The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz, as well as the Underworld USA trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover. He is the author of one work of non-fiction, The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
1,542 global ratings
The Book is Good. The Movie is Better.
4 Stars
The Book is Good. The Movie is Better.
LA Confidential is a seminal crooked cop noir. While the book is a major example of the genre, but the movie distills the essence of the plot, focuses on the most interesting characters, captures the post-war Los Angeles vive, and drives to a riveting finale. James Elroy's novel, from which the movie was taken, is chock full of 1940's cop trivia, a huge cast of characters and ends with the situation unresolved. Elroy is one of the deans of Los Angeles noir police fiction along with Raymond Chandler, James M Cain, Walter Mosley and Ross McDonald. In my opinion he is best read for his gritty details and character profiles.
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Top reviews from the United States

Len Joy
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Noir
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2021
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This is the first novel I’ve read by James Ellroy. As a writer, I try to write, spare, lean prose. Avoid adverbs and adjectives. It’s humbling to read Ellroy. His writing is so lean, sometimes he doesn’t even use verbs.

The story is set in LA in the ‘50s and was published in 1990. It is refreshingly unwoke (sorry for that adverb). I don’t imagine it could get published today, which is sad.

It’s a great story. Complicated and layered and packed with well-drawn characters. I had seen the movie years ago with Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, and Kevin Spacey. I watched it again when I was about a third of the way through the book. Kudos to the screenwriters who did an excellent job of condensing an epic, sprawling novel into a great film. But Ellroy’s story is far more complicated and complex than the film.

I read the book over several weeks, and to do the story justice I should have read it more quickly because it covers a decade and there are subplots on top of subplots. I am tempted to read it again. But I think I’ll try another one of his classics.

Highly recommended.
10 people found this helpful
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Mike Lepel
5.0 out of 5 stars If you have seen the movie the book is much better. It fills in a lot of the holes in the movie.
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2024
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The book fallows the LA story laid out in the first two book. A must read if you are a fan.
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EarlyBird
4.0 out of 5 stars Get Ready to Turn Pages
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2020
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Ellroy really, really knows how to write. He hooks you on the first page and doesn't let go.

He has basically reinvented the noir novel, both modernizing it in terms of how gritty, violent and dark it can be, while maintaining absolute fidelity to the slang of the genre - not to mention the profoundly "un-woke" attitudes of the time. His characters are violent, tortured, noble, depraved, weak, macho, honest, sinister - often all at the same time. Everyone's on the make. Everyone is playing someone else in a scene. And each chapter does very much feel like a "scene" right out of a movie, which is very appropriate for this particular book.

If you're an Angeleno, you're going to love reading how a detective tails a suspect all over town, "up Highland to Fountain, out to Silverlake..." etc. Being LA characters, they do a lot of driving. Get ready to look up specific historic locales he mentions.

So far, I've read his "LA Quartet" in order, and liked "The Black Dahlia" the best, perhaps because it was newest to me. But this one is very strong, very entertaining, very hard to put down. You can almost see Ellroy reveling in the number of sub-plots he can create and weave through the book. But to some degree this burdens the overall story, when he tries to cram too many sub-plots into the main narrative and wrap them up all too neatly in the end. It makes for a slighty too-long book, but it's an extremely entertaining one.
7 people found this helpful
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kaduzy
5.0 out of 5 stars The epitome of great noir
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2021
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I discovered this book only after falling in love with the film as a high school student. The film represents everything that made me fall in love with cinema, and the book represents everything that made me love reading: a plot thicker than London fog, characters so lifelike that when someone punches them, you spit blood. A rare instance of book and film being equally good, and all the more astonishing in light of how difficult this baby must have been to adapt. I hope they make it a miniseries one day, and adapt it more completely. They tried once and failed but that was back in the network TV days. Hopefully some streaming service will pick it up. No plot spoilers here. Just read it. Experience the masterpiece for yourself. But beware! The Kindle edition is sheer amateur hour, full of stupid errors as a result of a lazy digital transfer and zero apparent editing. I enjoyed reading the book again but I wish I could get my money back for this crappy, lazy, sloppy digital copy.
11 people found this helpful
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Patrick A. Hayden
5.0 out of 5 stars A Staggering Piece of Crime Fiction
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2002
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Jame's Ellroy's "LA Confidential" is a remarkable book. Most people know of it only by it's excellent film adaptation. On it's own, it is an incredibly complex, brutal, and utterly facinating look into the LAPD of the 1950's.
The book covers three main characters, as most of Ellroy's work does: Officer Wendell "Bud" White", a strongarm cop with a dark past that he uses to fuel his work; Sergent Jack Vincennes, a narc cop who is in love with his Hollywood connections and hides secrets of his own, trying to bury them as the crusading "Big V", and Sergent Edmund J. Exley, a war hero with a celebrated cop family who is driven by his sense of justice and the desire to live up to his father's expectations.
These three occupy the larger canvas of LA in the 50's. The story starts with background on the three and the situation in LA, and moves on to the Nite Owl murders, a brutal slaying of innocents who's solution will eventually drive these men to first work against each other, and then together as the story becomes more entagled in the seedy LA underworld. Each man is noble on a basic level, but has past demons that occasionally threaten to drag them down. The story in wrentching, as are all of Ellroy's "LA Quartet" novel, and fits in nicely with the previous novel "The Big Nowhere", and the next bok "White Jazz".
In "LA Confidential" Ellroy never lets up for a moment. The action is driven along by his breakneck writing style, and his staccato style shows it's first signs in the head of Jack Vincennes. The book is a marriage of tight plotting, facinating characters, and the dark background of LA. It is a triumph for James Ellroy.
7 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Carlos Servin
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente!!!!!!
Reviewed in Mexico on March 3, 2023
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El tercer libro de la colección y lo compré en super oferta, solo $99
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Nina
3.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in Italy on March 30, 2024
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I enjoyed the film and I decided to take a look at original book,I can say not smooth like the film,the story in many parts is different from the storyline of the film. But enjoyable if you like a crime novel.
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Christopher Mooney
5.0 out of 5 stars LA
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2024
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Great novel, far more to it than the film.
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cyrus patel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!
Reviewed in India on June 3, 2023
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A great book, great storyteller.
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Brendon Newcombe
5.0 out of 5 stars Good gift
Reviewed in Australia on January 4, 2024
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Got this gift for my son and he enjoyed it.
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