- White Jazz – James Ellroy
It was early August of 2006 and I was at the Rosemont Convention Center, attending the Wizard World Chicago comics convention. Kristen Bell was going to be signing autographs and taking photos with fans, and I was waiting in line. Needing to pass some time waiting for her to arrive, I started reading White Jazz, the final entry of James Ellroy’s LA Quartet. I got about 70 pages in before Kristen arrived, and put the book in my backpack. Fast forward 5 years, and I finally picked the book back up. Those 70-odd pages were victims of the intervening years, so I had to start over.
Ellroy certianly has a feel for the corrupt LAPD of the post-WWII decade. Here, he tells the story of Dave Klein, a vice lieutenant assigned to a case that brings together dirty cops, an Albanian crime family, Howard Hughes, and the feds. While an engaging tale, it does suffer from not being as good as its predecessors, The Black Dahlia and LA Confidential. Ellroy also employed a slightly different style, eliminating verbs, articles, and adjectives, which sometimes make it difficult to follow the action. Anyway, if you’ve enjoyed any of his work previously, you will recognize many of the characters here and will enjoy taking another trip back to the 50s LA.
A picture of my favorite book? That means I would have to decide on what my favorite book was. For a while, it was The Stand, by Stephen King. Then, it might have been The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy. More recent favorites have included Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. At the end of the day, I guess it doesn’t matter which is my favorite, since they are all represented in the photo. Oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, I am in desperate need of a new bookshelf. If only I had room for one.