The terse, staccato language approaches self-parody, saved by the psychological intensity and the white-knuckle ride into violence, corruption and depravity taken by the plot as it ensnares the utterly rotten Dave Klein, who arguably gets off lightly in the end, but at least he ends up help take down a bunch of people even worse than he is, which, if anything, is the major theme of the LA Quartet. Furiously paced, densely complex and constantly shitfting and swerving, it feels like the crescendo it was presumably meant to be.