L.A. Comfidential by James Elroy (1990)

I can think of many reasons why I should not have enjoyed this neo-noir crime novel.

First, the writing style is unpleasant and jerky; it would make even Hemingway, the champion of the choppy sentence, seem loquacious. Here is an example.

"A small room: Parker's desk, chairs facing it. No wall mementoes, a gray-tinted mirror--maybe a two-way. The chief behind his desk, in uniform, four gold stars on his shoulders. Dudley Smith in the middle chair; Green back in the chair nearest Parker." You see what Elroy has done here--he has left out words, mainly verbs. It's this way all through the book and at first it drove me crazy, but eventually I came to be so involved with the story that I forget to be annoyed. In fact, I came to feel that the style actually suited the tone of the book. Those readers old enough to have watched television back in the '50s will surely be reminded of Dragnat, as I was.

Second, not a single character is admirable, moral, or even law abiding, even though most of the large cast are cops. However, this is as much a story of police corruption as it is of outside crime, so the lack of principles in all concerned came to seem appropriate.

Third, the book is blood--soaked from start to finish, which I sometimes did find to be excessive and as much for shock value as for story progression. One of the most disturbing incidents -- prisoners almost beaten to death in their cell by drunken cops on Christmas day -- does mirror a real-life police scandal in Los Angeles in the 1950s which became known as Bloody Christmas, so perhaps the violence is not as exaggerated as it would first appear.

Elroy tells his story through the third-person limited viewpoints of three policemen. Ed Exley, whose father is a retired cop who has since grown rich from a construction business and whose older brother was a cop killed in the line of duty, is motivated by a drive to climb the ranks and impress his father. He is willing to do almost anything in his quest for success, even to snitch on his fellow officers. Bud White is a cop with a mission. Having been forced as a child to watch his mother beaten to death, he has made it his goal in life to protect women from abuse, often resorting to brutal tactics to punish those he perceives as guilty. Jack Vincennes is a glory hound who moonlights as technical advisor for a television detective series and who receive tips from a tabloid newspaper about celebrity narcotics users in return for exclusive coverage of the arrests. Their stories are told in revolving chapters.

The plot is incredibly intricate, with countless twists and turns, and a large cast of characters. Beginning with the murder of five people in an all-night cafe, it branches off in several seemingly unrelated directions, before the parts eventually fall into place. The fascination of this book comes from the reader's thirst to discover how all the pieces fit together. Elroy also exceeds expectations in character development, so that while his policemen are not admirable, they are understandable.

Crime novels are certainly not my preferred genre, but I have to admire Elroy for this excellent effort.