James Ellroy
James Ellroy is the most ferociously ambitious crime writer in American fiction, known as the Demon Dog of American crime writing. His LA Quartet, climaxing with LA Confidential, created a nightmarish vision of postwar Los Angeles corruption that rewrote the possibilities of genre fiction. His prose style — a dense, staccato accumulation of detail — is one of the most distinctive in contemporary literature.
Works
- LA ConfidentialCorrupt cops hunt a serial killer in 1950s Los Angeles
- The Black DahliaDetectives investigate notorious unsolved 1940s Hollywood murder
- The Big NowhereThree detectives pursue criminals in postwar Los Angeles
- White JazzJazz-era Los Angeles pulp noir following intertwined police stories
- American TabloidInterconnected narrative of crime and power in 1950s America