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Perfidia (2014)

by James Ellroy(Favorite Author)

3.82 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0307956997 (ISBN13: 9780307956996)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Knopf

series

Second L.A. Quartet

review 1: The first volume in Ellroy's 2nd LA Quartet takes us back to where it all began in December 1941. The investigation of a horrific multiple murder sees Hideo Ashida, forensic genius and the only Japanese American employed by the Los Angeles Police Dept., drawn into the orbit of the brutal but brilliant Sergeant Dudley Smith, himself engaged in a bitter clandestine feud with Commie obsessed alcoholic Captain Bill Parker. This book is a lot of fun for Ellroy aficionados as you get to play 'spot the character who turns up in The Black Dahlia or The Big Nowhere.' However, nerd-fodder aside, it's also a treatise on the bigotry and pro-Nazi sentiment prevalent in US society before Pearl Harbour changed everything. Ellroy also doesn't flinch in depicting the injustice heaped upon... more the Japanese American community during World War II, a shameful episode fuelled as much by greed as by prejudice. All the Ellroy trademarks are present, from the paired down prose to themes of obsession and moral ambivalence; good people do bad things and bad people do good things depending on the circumstance. Another fine book from a master of the craft. The wait for book 2 will be a long one.
review 2: Ellroy again rights a big, boisterous door-stop of a book concerned with a small group of L.A. denizens during a short time just before and right after Pearl Harbor. This is populated by people who will turn up later, like Dudley Smith, the most evil right-thinking criminal cop in American literature. Legend has it Ellroy cut down his first book because it was too long, and he did that by removing words that gave his writing a staccato beat. Well, he's not concerned with length here as he delves into Los Angeles again with 692 pages, not counting the Dramatis Personae helpful in keeping up with the cast of characters. less

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