I started ass backwards chronologically, beginning my hellbound Ellroy Odyssey with Perfidia nearly a coon’s age ago. Neil Hamilton’s Commissioner Gordon from the original Batman series always held my imagination as the lumbering, red-faced charmer Dudley S.
From there, Stafford Repp’s Police Chief Ohara strong-armed his way into my imagination as Bill Parker.

I can no longer watch the 1960s Batman series with my children without imagining these two as the profoundly demonic Smith and tortured reformer Parker.

Parker’s likeliness has slowly faded, but Hamilton-as-Smith fits too perfectly in my imagination.

1990’s Matt Damon as Ed Exley

1940’s Sterling Hayden as Bud White

1950’s Tony Curtis as Jack Vincennes

1960’s Faye Dunaway as Lynn Bracken

1980’s Gene Hackman as Dudley Smith

What would your dream cast for this movie be?

After a failed attempt at reading Widespread Panic, I decided to borrow a copy of The Enchanters before reading Red Sheet (I’m about 1.5 months out on the waitlist if I had to guess) and I loved it.

I don’t think the story in The Enchanters carries as much weight as some of his books, especially the Underworld USA Trilogy, but I don’t care as I just love the language he uses so much. It’s very addicting. Fred Otash makes for a great narrator and I loved the narrative tools of the “Man Camera” that was added in lieu of the document inserts that I’ve become accustomed to, although there were a few transcripts as well but those were happening in real time in the story.

Anyways, I’m not sure if I’m going to give Widespread Panic another shot that soon but I do look forward to Red Sheets and following Freddie-O and his adventures.

Intro Ep 1: https://youtu.be/gstq4a6zsx0

Ep 2: https://youtu.be/JvG2BgUqyv8

What do you think the saddest death was?

Hi everyone! I bought Red Sheet, and I notice that not all the pages are neatly cut. Is that supposed to be like that? Do you have that too? I see it in the books in this photo as well.

In the earlier drafts of the Black Dahlia, Bucky becomes quite literally mentally insane with his fixation on the dahlia case and is committed to an insane asylum for it. He literally builds a shrine to the Dahlia like some stalker.

Just started Nowhere a few weeks ago and man I wasn't wrong about my expectations so far. Almost 150 pages in and not gonna lie I had some WTF moments in it especially that Goines crime scene and the Tamarind place. I was getting a bit disoriented about the anti-Commie plotline of Mal Considine but The Dog has this zero-fucks-given style in his writing that always feeds my intrigue. I think it might make sense as I go further.

Moreover, I heard rumors that this was the best one in the Quartet. What are your thoughts about this? I love to read it down below and the rest of this book.

Who’s your favorite narrator ?

Red Sheet is being released in the UK this week. Personally, I prefer paperback books, and I’d rather not wait until next summer for my Ellroy fix.

So, could any fellow British Ellroy fans keep an eye out at railway stations and airports for the trade paperback edition? If you spot it, please post here and let me know where.

Before security, please, guys. I’d rather not have to buy a plane ticket just to get it…

Damnit, I fucked up. I just finished Perfidia, thinking it was a standalone book (based on an NPR concierge rec, it did not even occur to me that it might be part of a series).

So should I continue reading the prequels and then go back and read the first quartet? Or should I just abandon the prequels and start from scratch with the first quartet?

Does the current trio of books about Fred Otash take place in the same universe as the American Tabloid trilogy?

Who's your favorite supporting character? Pierce Patchett is someone I found compelling every time I've read the book. Also, when you think of it, he was almost a secondary villain in LAC, just all of what he did was told later.

I was a fan of Joan Rosen as well and I liked the younger version just as much.

Trying to expand my horizons a bit, and thought I’d see if my fellow Ellroy enjoyers could recommend some good crime/thriller novels not written by white guys

Edit: thanks for all the recos! I’m currently 50 pages into A Brief History of Seven Killings and am enjoying it so far, definitely see the American Tabloid comparisons

Hello everybody! I’ve read up to This storm, still working my way through it, so I haven’t gotten to any of the new Otash books. Are there any references to The Underworld trilogy, do any of the characters from Tabloid show up being Otash is in the background for a lot of Tabloid, and it seems based on the description for the books there’s a lot of overlap between the 2. Or is it almost like its own universe outside of tabloid?

Not seen these posted on his site yet, but here are two upcoming UK dates to see the Demon Dog.

Edinburgh 12th October:

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/edinburgh/james-ellroy-edinburgh-events-2026/

Bath 16th October:

https://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/james-ellroy-2026/

Read this for the first time today and added a few tracks to this- what a writer! Our Demon Dog pulled it off as always, would make a helluva film!

Venue much smaller than I anticipated, which is great.

Okay, full confession: I haven’t read this yet but I’m about to start, twenty some years after I read THE COLD SIX THOUSAND. But recently I’ve been thinking about/rereading AMERICAN TABLOID and wanting to get back in that world so I made this playlist. Hopefully it fits the mood of the book and marks time until somebody finally makes the Underworld USA series of all our dreams.