Duffy Pratt's Reviews > This Storm

I'm a big fan of Ellroy's, and still am. I've seen a bunch of reviewers criticizing this book for being too in love with its own style, and too over the top. On the one hand, that's sort of the point. And then, it's nowhere near as difficult as Blood's a Rover. For my taste, he was at his best with The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz and American Tabloid. It's all been sort of a step down from there, but not as precipitous, for me, as for some others.

This one involves Dudley's pursuing his plans to make a bunch of money by trafficking heroin and Japanese slaves from Mexico into LA and the Valley. It involves the mystery of two dead cops in a hangout for Fifth Columnists, a Gold heist that occurred 11 years prior, and a fire in Griffith Park that occurred two years after that. These are all somehow tied into an alliance between fascists and communists who can unite behind the idea that democracy needs to be destroyed. While the plot details are very intricate, I didn't actually find it that hard to follow what was going on.

There are the great recurring characters: Dudley Smith, Hideo Ashida, Kay Lake, Buzz Meeks, etc... There are also some good new characters, notably Joan Conville. She is a forensic biologist who enlisted in the Navy, but gets roped into working for the police department, and then gets spellbound by the prospect of the gold from the gold heist, while simultaneously treading a very fine line between Dudley Smith and his nemesis, Captain Parker.

There were a few things in the book that struck me as oddly anachronistic. There is a chapter where Hideo, a Japanese American who works in the crime lab and has escaped the internments, is repeatedly referred to as a "running dog." This hit a wrong note for a few reasons. First, the expression is of Chinese origin, and not Japanese. And its other Japanese who are saying/thinking it. Thus, it's not a product of any general racism. Second, the expression is one that in its modern usage is of Communist origin, and comes from Chairman Mao. The people who are using it in the book are likely fascists, if anything, and the expression postdates 1942. This is not the sort of mistake I would expect Ellroy to make.

There's another factor that sort of troubles me with these books, when considered as a whole. The development of Ellroy's style, becoming more and more extreme, happened with the passing of the years through the LA Quartet, and then Underworld U.S.A. Thus, as the years pass, from post WW2 to 1972, the prose becomes more stylized and the manner of description becomes more over the top and hyperbolic. That development seemed to fit the advancing mania of the times. Thus, I think it would make more sense for these books to return to a more staid style. We get that, to some extent, in the Diary entries of Kay Lake, but otherwise not at all.

Let's put it this way - a lot of people have compared/critiqued his writing as being too be-bop. But this is 1942. Be-bop isn't going to be a thing for another three years. Count Basie is playing at the New Year's bash. This book should swing, and in some chapters it does. But the Elmer Jackson and Dudley Smith chapters, for me, sound decidedly ahead of their times. (It's funny, I don't remember having these thoughts about Perdido.)

Anyway, I'm still a big fan of Ellroy, and will probably pick up Widespread Panic pretty soon. Even when he is hard to follow, he manages to make me care about a handful of his despicable characters.