Rating: 
Summary: The Demon Dog of American Fiction!
Review: James Ellroy is the best American writer since Faulkner and the best author writing in English today. Why Ellroy, you ask, and not such exquisite confectioners as John Updike, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, David Eggers, David Foster Wallace, and all other literati so beloved of the New York City black-dress-and-cocktail crowd? Because Ellroy, like Faulkner, has the guts to take on the Great Beast that is American history, wrestle it to the ground, and retell it through his own individual, bleak metaphysic. Like Faulkner, Ellroy is dark and violent, but like Faulkner, there is room for regeneration, for hope, for heroism and decency. In fifty years, Rabbit Angstrom will be a footnote in AmLit textbooks, Rushdie will be a 20th Century history curiousity because of the ayatollah's fatwa (come on, no one really reads Rushie, do they? Intellectuals just like displaying his books), the rest of today's "hot" writers will have been pulped to print up Business Week's latest issue on "the new new economy," but Ellroy will still be read, and readers will marvel at his sheer unrelenting insane audacity. Hats off to you, James. Thanks for keeping American literature alive. If it wasn't for you, it would have been lost to the Hamptons-dwelling editors of glossy mags published in New York somewhere around the time you published LA Confidential.
Rating:
Summary: fiction with an historical flair
Review: I have been a fan of James Ellroy since reading LA Confidential years ago. Waiting for this book has been well worth it. Cold 6K is dark, brutal and more believable than the results of the Warren Commission.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the wait.
Review: After reading American Tabloid I became an instant Ellroy fan. I've read the L.A. Quartet and others but Tabloid has always been my favorite. I've been waiting for The Cold Six Thousand for the better part of a year. Although Ellroy's prose is MUCH tighter in his latest novel, it fits very well and makes the story flow a lot better. Let's hope we don't have to wait another five years for part three. I recommend this book to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: A fierce, fascinating, gloriously uncompromising epic
Review: Kennedy. Martin Luther King. Hoover. Howard Hughes. An ex-FBI man turned Mob lawyer. A young cop sent to kill a black pimp.Real places, real people? Real enough. Ellroy's epic journey through America's recent past is made real through Ellroy's fast, edgy and brutal prose. Short sentences, nearly all dialog, and yet it works. The writing is pared down to the rawest, most evocative essentials, leaving a rhythm that washes over you. Uncompromisingly violent, yet hypnotically powerful, the story moves from location to location, and character to character without losing pace or coherence. Extracts from FBI memos and phone transcripts are presented to us. We see Pete Bondurant, a 6'4 French hitman scalping communists in Vietnam. We follow Ward Littell, a guilt-ridden ex-FBI man turned mob lawyer in Vegas who has to watch as those he admires most are killed. Supporting characters come and go; Barb, the Twist dancer; Chuck Rogers, right-wing nut; John Stanton, CIA covert ops man. We watch as the American dream crumbles with the shootings of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. People die. People get tortured. And yet we want to be there. We want to taste the power and experience the greed that drives - that drove - this era. This, more than anything, is a testament to Ellroy's ability to propel us into his uniquely dark and violent vision. And the negatives? Well, maybe it doesn't add as much as it could to its prequel, American Tabloid. But when American Tabloid was arguably one of the best books of the 1990s, its a tough act to follow. Its also arguable whether this is a good book for a newcomer to Ellroy. Maybe some will find it too hard to identify with the main characters - Ward is too weak, Pete too dangerous and Wayne is perhaps too thin a character. Maybe some people will be offended by the racist and homophobic language, or the graphic violence. But hey, noone's making them read it. In summary, The Cold Six Thousand is fierce, raw and uncompromising. One becomes fascinated by, and is drawn to, the sleaze, the power and the turmoil of this fascinating period of America's darker history. If you're still interested, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: James Ellroy does it again!
Review: In his newest edition to his Underworld USA Trilogy (beginning with American Tabloid) James Ellroy takes the stakes even higher. While the first novel dealt primarily only with the events leading up to the Kennedy Assassination, The Cold Six Thousand takes the bull by the horns, spanning from the aftermath of the aforementioned assassination to Vietnam to Mob Rule in Las Vegas to Klan Activities in the south, to Martin Luther King, and finally the assassination of JFK's brother. The three principle characters, Wayne Tedrow, Pete Bondurant, and Ward Littel are all multi-layered and interesting. Bondurant, an aging hitman working for the Mob in Vegas, and Littel, and ex-FBI agent turned Mob Lawyer are returing characters from Tabloid. The new player, Tedrow, is a Las Vegas policeman who stumbles on the assassination cover up when he is sent to Dallas on the day of the assassination to (terminate) a man who shanked a blackjack dealer. The supporting cast of characters includes J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Huges, RFK, LBJ, Jack Ruby, Sam Ginancana, Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray, and many others too numerous to list....The opening sentece pretty much sets the tone for the whole novel. It's brutal, it's violent, but it never fails to entertain. If you like Ellroy, or crime fiction or general, buy this book, and his LA Quartet as well.
Rating:
Summary: Tabloid Redux - but still essential
Review: Negative criticism first. Think 'Casino' following 'Goodfellas' - style/plot/execution all fine, but...dèja vu? TCST's interlinked trio lacks a leader in the vein of American Tabloid's Kemper Boyd, and the rocket-paced narrative loses dramatic weight as a result. That said, you will read the last 200 pages in a sitting, and the dénouement is Ellroy's best since 'The Black Dahlia'. Not a masterpiece as claimed in the sleevenotes, merely excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Enough is enough
Review:
Here is another ponderous, preposterous read from the favorite writer of the emotionally disturbed, James Ellroy. Read the entire Ellroy oeuvre, if you can stomach it, and you find that the stories, as well as the characters, are virtually interchangeable: the characters are the dregs of humanity, and the stories are implausible.
There is no doubt that Ellroy has some talent as a writer. But to dwell endlessly on the pathologies of society - crooked cops/FBI/CIA, prostitutes, killers, pushers, Mafioso, perverts, and so on, ad nauseum, becomes very tedious for any but the emotionally stunted adolescent mind. Ultimately, this becomes not just tedious but dishonest. Granted the world he portraying...where is even one character of any principle, conviction, intelligence, or common decency? They are mostly non-existent.
The "critics" say Ellroy writes in the "hard-boiled" fashion of the crime/detective novels of Hammett and Chandler. Please, spare me such idiotic gobbling. Both Hammett and Chandler had the talent to write of the ugly side of life without the constant stream of obscenities, graphic violence, human monstrosities, and convoluted plot lines that are the trademark of any Ellroy novel.
Well, now that I have finished with the last of Ellroy, I can wash my hands and read something with merit. Whether or not Ellroy continues to write, I've had enough. Life is too short to waste reading ugly books.
Rating:
Summary: Burned-to-a-crisp noir fiction
Review: To call this "hard-boiled noir" simply does not do it justice. Ellroy continues his journey through the many places and faces of evil, and in the process, crafts some amazing characters and provides them with the opportunities to engage in all manner of depravity and cruelty, all within the backdrop of the turbulent times of America, circa 1963-68.
Yet, Ellroy manages to actually get you to root for guys like Pete Bondurant, an accomplished assassin. Somehow, you still want him to come out on top in the end, while simultaneously neglecting the heinous crimes [two of which were particularly gruesome] he conducts throughout the book. As for what he's supposed to come out on top of, I'm not quite sure. With Bondurant, Tedrow, and Littell, they may be evil and rotten, but not necessarily at their respective cores.
One thing the book is not is a mystery. There are a few twists in the story here and there, but you know "who done it" throughout nearly all of the book.
Ellroy's writing, while it could always be described as "clipped," is nearly shorn entirely here. At times, I likened it to "Dick and Jane Go to Hell." That's not to say I dislike it, only that this continuous form sometimes serves to accentuate the book's bloated length.
A minor quibble, and insignificant in the overall review, particularly given Ellroy's ability to weave intricate schemes and plots through his characters, and the incredible imagery he evokes through his clipped prose, such as this jewel:
Pete opened it. Pete smelled it. They saw it: The severed legs. The diced hips. Mom's head in the vegetable bin.
Overall, a sprawling picture of crime and the depths of evil to which humans--indeed, Americans, if a tenth of what Ellroy writes is true--will explore. Unsettling, diabolical, even hilarious. Above all, a visceral masterpiece in crime fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Ellroy's Ulysses? Maybe...
Review: Dig. This is one hot tome. Ok, so much for my one sentence attempt to copy Ellroy. Anyway, this is fascinating, intense, and loooooooonnnnnggggggg book. Nevertheless, I argue it is more entertaining than American Tabloid. Maybe it is because the stakes are higher and the characters are already known to us (except Wayne). Where Tabloid succeeded with smaller stories that became bigger, these stakes are huge from the beginning. You weirdly fall in love with Ellroy's flawed heroes: Wayne, Pete (the coolest killer ever), and Ward (who remains hard to love)...you watch their lives unfold and unfurl. Hoover is back and again knows all. Ellroy's plot could be seen as outlandish, but somehow each and every piece works (unlike some of the guns in the book). It is brillant. It is absoring. It is Ellroy.
Rating:
Summary: Worthy Follow-Up
Review: Ellroy's follow-up to "American Tabloid" takes another look at the morally-bereft American crime world in the late '60s. This book (and its precursor) are the perfect shot of grain alcohol to obliterate the syrupy '60s image we see all too often of flower children, sensitive singer-songwriter-superstars, and the like. Ellroy's vision of the '60s is harsh and certainly not for the squeamish, as Ellroy knocks icons such as Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King off their pedestals and gives us a J. Edgar Hoover as an evil Wizard of Oz, pulling levers and manipulating events behind his veils at the FBI. Ellroy's previous characters, the haunted FBI agent Ward Littel and everyone's favorite French Canadian strong-arm Pete Bondurant, meet with a new cast of nasties, including the Tedrows, Wayne Junior and Senior. A bunch of nasty people meet nasty ends (as do others), and nobody is allowed to ride off into the sunset. While not quite up to the standards of "American Tabloid," (perhaps only because "Tabloid" came first) this is an excellent read, particularly if you're a fan of Ellroy's rapid-fire style. **** Definitely read "Tabloid" first -- the back story here, especially regarding Bondurant and Littel, is critical. ****
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