The narrative shifts to a kind of bookended first person, for this one. I can’t deny the staccato prose do sing sometimes, but, off the back of Confidential, it feels like Ellroy is attempting something new, which makes it sophomoric in some respects.

The joy of Confidential, for me, was how masterful the plotting was and how the prose work elucidates each step from a macro perspective. In this one, we’re pigeon holed and as a result the plot feels like it’s spinning wheels until everything just starts popping off and the solipsism of our protagonist has caused him to miss crucial details. And we have too, as readers, since we are confined. I can see why the style would switch to something like this, but it does feel less gratifying to read off the back of probably a perfect, or near perfect novel of this same type, with some of the same characters.

It’s still worth reading to see the conclusion, such as it is, between the characters that make it through to this one. In many ways the plot is as intricate as the others, it just feels less earned because it’s sprung on you. There’s some fun being locked into, in many ways, a non-protagonist protagonist. It feeds into the paranoia and the being in a brain as uninformed as the reader. It’s frenetic and may just be the least crap person in the story, rather than a traditional protagonist, which has never existed in these books. It’s just factions and machinations smashing together, and our little characters being embroiled in it.

I wasn’t dissatisfied with the ending, but it does seem like, from a craft perspective at least, to be the weakest. I’m curious to see if this prose style and perspective transfers into later works as well. Maybe a more refined version of this will be better than the heights of this series. Maybe.