If the LA Quartet were crime novels, and the Underworld USA trilogy were political thrillers, the second LA Quartet is turning into a supercharged phantasmagoric journey through an inferno of crime and war and politics. Staccato crims, staccato policework, staccato corruption, staccato violence, staccato psychopathic egomaniacal self-aggrandisement and enrichment punch through the pages in Ellroy's unique hard-boiled lyricism, along with an amzing elegaic sense of the astonishing uniquer panorama of passion and opportunity, the temporary suspension of normal rules that exists for the brief period of the war years in LA. Political ideology, warfare, hysterical paranoia, xenophobia, cynical opportunism and crime merge into one as no less than three crimes merge into one layered and intertwined investigations, just as various factions surrounding the investigations are layered and intetwined in competing interests, aims, drives, loyalties and loves. The whole thing seems inhuman, alien, incmprehensible, exhausting, but told with such relentless conviction, energy and unwavering commitment to the milieu that is being created that it's easy to take for granted that the whole thing is a kind of pulp schtick by Ellroy, overfamiliar and verging on self-parody, rather than an amazing literary acheivement. I'm reminded of The Gallows Pole because rather than being historical crime fiction, this is a historical novel about crimes.