Re: RARA-AVIS: Devil in a Blue Dress

Anthony Smith (ansmith@netdoor.com)
Sun, 19 Apr 1998 14:19:24 -0500 > On the Ellroy front, I was so disappointed with Ellroy's Suicide Hill
that
> I'd like to take no chances with my second Ellroy book. I'd like to read
> one of his best. To that end, I'm thinking I'll join the small rebel
group
> reading Dahlia instead of Hollywood Nocturne.

To me, everything of his before LAConfidential was good crime fiction, but
not special in the sense of lasting literary importance (and damn fine
reading). Hollywood Nocturnes allows a reader to see the older short
stories, written before LAC, as well as ones written after (even a modern
setting, in Gravy Train), and Dick Contino's Blues, expanding cartoonishly
and wonderfully on the White Jazz riffing.

Don't give up on Ellroy, then. He's an author who gets better with time,
not one who does a bang up early career and then fades away.

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