Real horror does not shout,it whispers.Dangerous people are seldom prone to rant and rave but go about their work in silence and with an outward appearance of normality. This strikes home forcibly with Ellroy's masterly but chilly book
Martin Plunkett is a serial killer and his narrative interspersed with newspaper clippings tells of his murderous and depraved odyssey in 70's America.Evil told in the accents and tone of one recounting a trip to the shopping mall,

Midway through the book Ellroy pulls a twist that throws the reader shrwedly off balance and keeps him that way throughout

I admired the book but without really liking it,maybe its that I like a moral centre to my crime writing and this is a massively amoral book
Just like the century that spawned it Ellroy's book is a fascinating,compelling thing but dont look for the easy resolution of empty comfort of the archetypal crime novel
Fiction as reality ,not as escapism

This very good early Ellroy has been reissued with the title "Killer on the Road", standard book number 038080896X .

James Ellroy's mastery for dark crime tales comes to the fore here with possibly his best book (certainly ranking alongside 'American Tabloid' for plot, and 'The Black Dahlia' for the characterisation of obsessives). The tale is the startling autobiography of a captured serial killer, Martin Michael Plunkett, from his childhood, through his career as a killer all across America, to his eventual capture by and mind-games with FBI Serial Killer Task Force agent Thomas Dusenberry.

Plunkett is an articulate ruthless genius, and his narration, is such that it keeps you glued to the pages. As in much of Ellroy's work, all the characters, policeman, murderers, victims are painted with a dark brush. The result, as always, is a book which is almost impossible to put down.

Crime wave is the book that made me the James Ellroy fan I am today. From the first sentence, I was hooked.

Crime wave is a book of short stories, actual true crime cases, and a few essays written by Ellroy for GQ Magazine.

Reading Ellroy is almost like singing along with a tune on the radio, it's all about rythm. Included are a story about Ellroy's Mother's unsolved murder and another fictitious story involving Dick Contino. The stories that I loved most of all though, were the stories told by Danny Getchell, the dirt digger for HUSH-HUSH magazine.

All in all, I loved Crime Wave because it is a look at 1950s crime in L.A. I think Ellroy fans and non-Ellroy fans alike, should do themselves a favor and pick up a copy of CRIME WAVE.

This is a noir classic. The whole town of Verdon in Nebraska is filled with conflicts, and everyone has a vendetta.This book is also horrific as well, as Thompson at times tries his hand at horrifying the reader. I don't believe this novel is for everyone, but as the back cover suggests, everyone who enters this town should carry a .45.

Any one who has read James Ellroy's so called L.A quartet (like my chiropractor or my friend Damien or this producer I know or this freak taxi driver I once met) is probably chafing at the bit to go back to the stomping ground of the men who were looking for Black Dahlia, Buzz Meeks and any one in the gang that ever accepted a kick back from Howard Hughes or Mickey "the kike". This like 'Dick Contino's Blues' is a secret extra gang member and deserves it's place on the shelf near BLACK DAHLIA, THE BIG NOWHERE, LA CONFIDENTIAL,AND WHITE JAZZ. Those of you who have read and survived the quartet will be happy to find a good cop bad cop book which resurrects cuddly Dudley Smith from his White Jazz early retirement. Keep writing please Mr Elroy- When I read your books I realise that in my life I have had too much of one thing - sleep. KR

Second novel of James Ellroy, published in 1983, CLANDESTINE develops the themes already present in BROWN'S REQUIEM. Fred Underhill is a young talented cop who believes he has found some clues proving that a serial killer is at work in the Los Angeles area. We are in 1951, in the middle of the Korea war, and the americans see communists everywhere.

In his mystical quest, Fred Underhill will meet Dudley Smith, a L.A.P.D. lieutenant who'll have the career we know under James Ellroy's pen. Smith or/and the author does have an obsession : the "Black Dahlia" mystery he has been unable to solve. It's the second time in two books that Ellroy evokes this affair that will give a few years later its name to one of James Ellroy's most known novels. Another recurrent Ellroy theme appearing in CLANDESTINE is the description of the death of one of the serial killer's victim, similar to the circumstances of the death of the writer's own mother.

Fred Underhill is also a golf addict and a tormented human being who'll seek redemption during the five years he'll pass in order to solve the case he has discovered. I must confess that the last fifty pages of CLANDESTINE are so gripping that I couldn't leave the book for one minute before its ending.

A book to rediscover.

One of the reasons I love James Ellroy is his unflinching, honest portrayal of what all humans are: flawed, to different degrees. CLANDESTINE, to me, is what begins the L.A. saga, and it is the only way to be introduced to one of Ellroy's best characters: The monster that is Dudley Smith.

Many, it seems, felt the ending wrapped up too neatly or improbably, but it worked for me entirely. It's more than a warm-up for his best, BLACK DAHLIA, and stands on its own as noir. Ellroy shows us yet another facet of self-destruction redeemed in the nick of time so that at least SOME good can come from life's horrid injustices.

On a final note, I must confess, I am a dog lover, and the addition of Night-Train was comically wonderful (read it, and you will know what I'm talking about).

James, you've done it again!

I am a huge Ellroy fan. I have read nearly every one of his books, but this one just didn't cut it. The haphazard approach of putting together his essays on popular culture and hollywood with some short fiction based on a few of his characters from the LA Quartet was too much. I couldn't get focused on any of the fiction, and the long winded diatribes on the vaccuousness of celebrityism in LA (talk about an easy target), together with an endless, hyper-syllabic dissertation on why the O.J. trial was a circus (really?) made me long for the end.

Don't even check it out of the library...

After watching him interviewed on E!, I had to check out his book. If anyone is into Los Angeles' History and crime stories, this book is for you. There also some fiction (that seems so real) in the book about some big 50s and 60s icons such as the Rat Pack and friends. Some of the language is before my times (70s child here), but soon you will be hip with lingo, and calling things "boss".

Dig it dad: James Ellroy is at the top of the heap when it comes to writing crime fiction, because he's not afraid to look at the bottom of the barrel. CRIMEWAVE is another brutal look at Los Angeles in all of it's sordid glory in an era when there was a reason that foot patrolman were called beat cops. From the stark, icy descriptions of malevolent mayhem most of his readers will never see, to his diabolically derived detachment, the demon dog delivers a devastating package with every pulsating page...so put down the crack, jack and pick up your slacks. The demon dog wants to take you down to places that will leave you trembling with trepidation and delirious with desperation.

As a another reviewer stated Ellroy is best with the novel format. I've read a lot of his books and it's taken me at least 100 pages to get into the stories, except for American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand.

"Dick Contino's Blues" is the best story in this collection. "High Darktown" is also good. The rest aren't very impressive. Having said that, I cannot wait until Ellroy's next novel.

This book is the only major disapointment GOD has given me so far,not really a waste of time,the Buddy de Greco bits are rather cool but this certainly not the book tostart your trip in this man's heart of darkness or VOYAGE AU BOUT DE LA NUIT.The Lloyd Hopkins saga is where it all began for me and I would recommend it strongly to anyone new to the world of Sir Ellroy . Yours with the sincerity pills ...C.Monnet President of the Bud White Appreciation Society...

I think it was Faulkner who said something along the lines of: I write novels because poems and short stories are too difficult. Of course, Faulkner could do anything he put his mind to when it came to prose. But Ellroy largely misses in this collection of L.A. stories. Each story or novella has a great array of characters and some semblance of the beginning of a plot. Yet each seems to peter out by the end and the conclusions are a mad dash to terminate the story in a quick but unsatisfying way. My theory is that Ellroy set out to write actual novels for each of these plots, but tired of the storyline or the characters and just ended them. Maybe I'm wrong--but if so, then I'll go with the original premise that it is harder to write a short story than a novel and maybe Ellroy should stick to the novel.

Sometimes a story is only as good as its villan, and in "Because the Night" the villan is totally unbelievable: A renowned criminal psychiatrist, who is also a psychotic, a talented thief, a drug dealer and a cult leader/manipulator. His motive: the acquisition of data? Please.

I still enjoyed Hopkins as a character, but the whole premis of the book was strained, and there was no opportunity for the main character to really shine. Overall, a weak sister to Ellroy's other Hopkins stories, which are in turn pale comparisons to his other works like "LA Confidential" and "Black Dahlia."

Second novel of the Lloyd Hopkins saga, BECAUSE OF THE NIGHT has been published in 1984. Like in BLOOD ON THE MOON, James Ellroy has adopted in this book two points of view, Lloyd's and John Havilland's, the killer.

Even if the twists of BECAUSE OF THE NIGHT are highly improbable, the novel still stays as intense as it was when I first read it seventeen years ago (gasp!). Ellroy was then one of the first writers to introduce serial killers in his books and was already a master in describing the psychology of his characters.

What strikes me the most now is the evident relation between the mad psychiatrist Havilland and the writer Ellroy. The symptoms of Havilland's madness are very similar to the creative process of the writer. Havilland tries to recreate traumatic scenes of his childhood by directing "live" the poor souls that have fallen in his trap. How not to recognize here the endless efforts of James Ellroy in order to exorcize his mother's murder books after books ?

So if you have the curiosity to go beyond the main argument of BECAUSE OF THE NIGHT, you will soon find out that this book is not only a unique opportunity given to the reader to analyze Lloyd Hopkins thanks John Havilland's psychological skill but is also a terrifying trip through James Ellroy's own obsessions.

A book to rediscover.

Probably not the best Ellroy's novel, but certainly you won't have the suspicion of having lose your time. You can't give up reading

The Cold Six Thousand, the sequel to American Tabloid, is the second book in a triology that tells the FICTITIOUS story of how a group of rogue ex-FBI-agents and ex-cops shape and manipulate American history. The series is set between Kennedy's rise to power in the late 1950s and Nixon's resignation in 1974. The Cold Six Thousand starts off with the investigation of the Kennedy assassination in late 1963. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident, the book's protagonists get involved in national elections, Cuba, Vietnam, the mob's takeover of Las Vegas, the civil rights movement, and finally the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
It is absolutely fascinating to see how Ellroy succeeds at weaving through the labyrinth of historic events without ever losing the historic thread. And then the story: It goes crash, boon, bang, it's a staccato of plots, counterplots, intrigues, betrayls, murder, revenge, and redemption. The Cold Six Thousand is not a casual read, on the contrary: Its characters and events will remain with the reader for a long time.
Unfortunately, however, the book has more than its fair share of shortcomings.
One is the role the Mafia plays throughout the whole story. Ellroy tries to make us believe that the mob was THE driving force behind most of the events that made the 60s such an explosive pandemonium. Carlos Marcellos and Co. are portrayed as all-powerful and omnipotent. Is is almost as if the Outfit works like the law of nature: No man can escape it, even the mightiest must surrender to its will.
Then there are the never-ending outbursts of violence. Raw, graphic, violence that is. In one scene, a Mafia killer tells a fellow hitman how he cracked a woman's skull in a vice; in another, Ellroy describes with relish how Pete Bondurant takes a man out by tearing up and grabbing deep down his throat. In American Tabloid, the violence made sense; Ellroy used it to paint a realistic portrait of a violent era. In The Cold Six Thousand, much of the violence is superfluous and simply gross. I believe that a novelist talks to his readers; in American Tabloid Ellroy seemed to say "I don't like this epidemic of violence, either, but it is my duty as a chronicler to report it". In this book, however, he actually seems to enjoy and take pleasure in it.
Another problem is the language. Short, fragmented sentences. Sometimes they actually add to the excitement; more often, though, they are plainly annoying.
Finally, I feel that Ellroy is a much better writer of hard-boiled fiction than of romance. Too many men fall in love with too few women. Wayne loves Lynette, Janice, and Barb. Littel loves Jane, Barb, and Janice. How these women hold such an attraction for every man they run across and make them not just want them but actually truly love them remains a mystery.
In conclusion, I would like to stress my belief that a GREAT writer like Ellroy is clearly not oblivious to these flaws (at least not to the ones that have been pointed out by a large number of reviewers, which gives our criticism a certain degree of legitimacy). As a matter-of-fact, I don't know very much about him, but I can't help my suspicion that he feels he has reached a level that gives him the right not to give a damn about his readers. I will most definitely read the last book in the series once it is publised; however, I also feel it is time to move on and turn to another author.

Being a big fan and admirer of the book that it follows, the classic "American Tabloid", "The Cold Six Thousand" came pretty close to topping it, but just passes by as a solid crime epic. Following the events that ended "Tabloid", we meet up with a cop whose path collides with many a corrupt characters, including many of the individuals who make up "Tabloid". Using many real historical figures as corrupt supporting players (FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, etc.) adds a eerie feeling of realism despite this book being a piece of fiction. The dark feel of this book eclipses "Tabloid" (which if you look at the period "Cold Six Thousand" traces, makes perfect sense), and ultimately adds some real tension to a history of events that takes it's toll on the primary charcters, and ultimately, on America itself. It's a worthy enough follow-up (even with it's bleak and uncertain ending) to a great book and a must for Ellroy fans to read.

How do you follow a novel like American Tabloid, the definitive Kennedy assassination conspiracy novel? You write a novel like The Cold Six Thousand, which is the definitive RFK, MLK, Vietnam, Howard Hughes, Mafia, Las Vegas and J. Edgar Hoover conspiracy novel. The Cold Six Thousand starts off where Tabloid ended, on the 22nd of November 1963, the day of Kennedy's assassination. We are reintroduced to characters we have met in earlier novels (Pete Bondurant from White Jazz and American Tabloid) and Ward Littell (from American Tabloid) and to new characters such as the Tedrows, father Wayne Sr. and son Wayne Jr. Wayne Jr., a Las Vegas police officer, is sent to Dallas to kill a pimp, his fee for doing so, six thousand untraceable dollars. The roller coaster ride begins here, weaving his fictional characters in with real life characters (Jack Ruby, J. Edgar Hoover and Bayard Rustin to name a few) Ellroy takes us on a savage tour of the dark and ugly side of the 1960s from a heroin processing operation in Vietnam to the civil rights marches of the American south with plenty of stops in Las Vegas which Ward Littell is attempting to purchase for Howard Hughes while still allowing the mob to stay in control and collect their skim. Some of Ellroy's takes on the activities of the right wingers at the time might seem a little outre and exaggerated, but after reading Rick Perlstein's _Before the Storm_ and David Halberstam's _The Best and the Brightest_ I find that Ellroy is right on target skewering the nuts of the extreme right wing who infested our country during the 1960s. The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that it bogs down in places. Ellroy needs an editor with balls big enough to say "James, cut this part out, it drags the story". Still, even if the story drags in places Ellroy picks things up quickly and soon you're reading along and feeling as breathless if you just went on a five mile run and smoked a carton of Camels.

Out of the 4 Ellroy books I have read, this one was by far the worst out of the group. It profiles a serial killer and is writeen as his autobiography. While it sounds like it could be an interesting story, it in fact is rather dull in many parts of the story. Supposedly the killer is very smart, but he doesn't come across as that way; instead he seems of average intelligence. Basically what seperates him from the common criminal is he isn't a complete idiot. Furthermore, he was a boring person. Sure, there was the occasional murder but other than that he just drives around the country. I strongly recommend saving your time and reading a different book by Ellroy; I'm pretty sure whichever one you choose instead will be more entertaining than this one.

True, Killer on the Road is different, and arguably weaker, than the "LA Noir" books - Black Dahlia, White Jazz, Big Nowhere, LA Confidential - but it is still worth a read. I don't have a clue (thankfully) whether the mind of Plunkett is the mind of a real serial killer or not. It reads as if it could be. The detached but obsessive self-introspection of Plunkett, as he details his crimes feels real enough. The pace, much slower than in later Ellroy novels, fits the subject matter well. The chill builds and builds as you follow Plunkett's spiral into hell.

Without giving away too much of the book, the most chilling moment for me is a scene where two serial killers meet and compare notes. Their conversation could almost be that of two traveling salesmen comparing sales territories. The ordinariness of this scene is what made it so terrifying for me. Monsters with human faces, not numb, but indifferent, to what they do, will surface again in later Ellroy novels, but their closeness to rest of the world has not been drawn as sharp as it is here.

Reading the other reviews here I've noticed two trends:

1) People say serial killers are really like the character in this book.

2) This book's plot os not as intricate as those found in other Ellroy books.

I can agree with 2 but I've never been inside the mind of a serial killer so I can't vouch for 1. However, I have to say that I found Pluncket a believable serial killer, and to me, that's all that matters. I don't really believe that all serial killers must fit into a certian profile; there are many unsolved murders in the world that are probably the world of serial killers who do not.

I found this book to be as interesting as other Ellroy books because of the intense focus on a single character as compared to looks at a number of characters that are not as detailed. I personally enjoy the characterizations in Ellroy's books more than the plots, although I do appreciate both. So this book was a treat for me.

I have to agree with some other reviewers, though, that the end of the book was less satisfying than the beginning. Using the "end at the beginning" format did not impress me, nor did some of the final moments of the book.

Despite a few small complaints and some dissimilarity to Ellroy's other work, I would reccomend this book to any Ellroy fan or to those interested in intense characterizations.

First: Ellroy is the greatest living American writer. Second: I'm sorry to report that this collection of early novels was a big disappointment. If you haven't read him, I wouldn't recommend starting here. As the man himself might put it, "it didn't jazz me." In fact, I put it down after reading the whole of *Blood on the Moon* (the first of these three), and trudging half-way through *Because the Night* (number two). The biggest problem is that it's not really "noir." The prose is weak, predictable, numbingly repetetive and overwrought. It reads much more like the kind of massmarket, serial-killer fiction that clutter the tables of New York City street salesmen (think *Hannibal*) than Ellroy's great masterpieces (every novel after and including *The Black Dahlia*). Much of the prose is downright annoying (how many ways can he use the word "picayune"?).

Although there are glimpses of the darkness and passion that Ellroy would perfect in his later novels, I can't recommend shelling out for the hardcover. If you must, you must. Hey, I know what it's like: I'm an Ellroy addict, and I know how it is to "jones" for his pitiless, high octane vision. This isn't it. Alas.

I read a lot of crime fiction, and nobody does what Ellroy does.Forget the fact that these are early Ellroy works. Forget the fact that they tale place in a different era than those visited in his more popular books (40's - 50's - 60's), that being the 1980's. Just groove on Ellroy's caffeinated prose and bask in the glory of its radiance!

I love that these books take place in the '80's. When you read other Ellroys you wonder what his take on the "modern world" would be. I found it just as relentless and glorious as the other time periods used in his later novels. Ellroy was writing these at the same time Brett Easton Ellis was writing Less Than Zero, the same time that the movie To Live and Die in L.A. appeared in theatres. This is a time and place in American history with tremendous dramatic literary potential. The fact that Ellroy's characters and story lines could exist in the 40's, 50's or 60's, with bourbon and jazz replacing cocaine and punk is a testement to Ellroy's undeniable brilliance.

And Lloyd Hopkins, the hero of these novels? He lacks the charm of a Spenser or Carella, posesses the demons and frailties of a Robicheaux or Scudder, but is still an Ellroy original. Love him or hate him while you read these books, but I guarantee you'll miss him when you're done.

Read L.A. Confidential or American Tabloid for the best Ellroy there is. Read L.A. Noir and just enjoy Ellroy.

Do not give up on Ellroy because of LA NOIR. This collection is his weaker stuff. Try the LA Quartet( The BLack Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz) and American Tabloid. These are much better examples of Ellroys prose.