- Mass Market Paperback: 280 pages
- Publisher: Avon Books; Reissue edition (31 Dec 1990)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0380899345
- ISBN-13: 978-0380899340
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.7 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,819,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
In one of Ellroy's most fascinating and grueling novels, the twisted, mortally brilliant mind of serial murderer Martin Plunkett, is laid open for the reader, with chilling, pulse-pounding realism. A gripping novel from the author of The Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere.
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First Sentence
Dusenberry's estimated body count was low, and Warden Wardlow's stone metaphor only partly accurate. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Dusenberry's estimated body count was low, and Warden Wardlow's stone metaphor only partly accurate. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After reading the the Dudley Smith trio one after another, it is obvious to me that James Ellroy story telling style has improved since this early novel. Told in the first person, this novel follows the "career" of a serial killer. It never really touches you or grips you fully but you find yourself reading on, but you don't know why. Worth reading as an early piece of Ellroy's mind.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book showcases and uses a lot of what went through James Ellroy's mind as he grew up, through the murder of his mother, his street dwelling, panty robbing formative years, through to the crime / Americana writer he is today. Many of Ellroy's favourite themes are in here, the hyper intelligent outsider (also used as a cop in the Lloyd Hopkins stories) as well as Ellroys fascination with vampiric fangs (used again as the murderers MO in the Dudley Smith quarter). There are plenty of other favourites to be picked out for James Ellroy enthusiasts (what no one sided Russian Roulettes I hear you all cry) but to the unitiated it is still a good read and an excellent example of getting into a serial killers mind, a more viseral and tortured approach than Thomas Harris could ever attempt and Ellroy's killer has no real excuse other than parental lethargy to unhinge him, making the end product, a product of out times, a million times more scary than pantomime monsters whose sister was ate by wartime turncoats. (sorry if you are yet to read that particular "gem").
All in all a good read, it might dissapoint Ellroy fans who have only played with the Black Dahlia and LA COnfidential, but if you like the more crazy serial killer (a la Lloyd Hopkins) then you will enjoy this.
All in all a good read, it might dissapoint Ellroy fans who have only played with the Black Dahlia and LA COnfidential, but if you like the more crazy serial killer (a la Lloyd Hopkins) then you will enjoy this.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read most of Ellroy's bpooks I snapped this one up on a recent trip to the states and read it cover-to-cover on the flight back. Gripping you think? Well no! I had to keep going because I couldn't quite believe that the masterful crime writer I knew had resorted to such shock serial killer schlock displayed in this work. Gone the masterful turn of phrase, the development line, the characterisation - welcome to substandard tosh. Errrrr.....I didn't like it.
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