Rating: 
Summary: Literary Experiment Gone Horribly Wrong
Review: Ellroy writes short sentences. Ellroy writes many short sentences. Ellroy writes short, declarative sentences over and over. Ellroy's style starts out annoying. Ellroy's style becomes unbearable. Ellroy's book is a an experiment gone wrong.
Rating: 
Summary: We Didn't Light The Fire
Review: This is a difficult book to read. It's also the type of book reviewers have in mind when they talk about a "tour de force" or about a writer "taking risks". I slogged through well over two-thirds of The Cold Six Thousand before I glommed (so to speak) what Elroy's style was about. Not that I wasn't thinking about it from page 3 on. I remembered A Clockwork Orange, how unreadable that was until I caught the rhythm of Burgess' narrative. I kept trying to tie it to music (White Jazz), looking for some sort of pulse, but it just didn't seem to catch.
Then I remembered a photo essay on J.F.K.; a film/video that consisted of variable length shots of still photos or frames from throughout his life and career. Jack and Jackie-flash--Jack campaigning-flash--Jack and John Jr.--flash--Jack and Bobbie-flash--Jack at his inaugural--flash . . .
The technique is rapid, jerky, without commentary, sometimes with music, its aim being to strobe the images--after-flash style--into your brain. It's done a lot now on TV with "that was the year" compendiums. Billy Joel did it musically with "We Didn't Light The Fire", Madonna-to a degree--with Vogue.
And what better way to chronicle one of the kinkiest, kraziest time periods in our country's history? The strobe light came into its own back then, nothing stood still anywhere for more than a second--I remember a commentator saying "1968 will be remembered as a year that belongs in a straight-jacket".
Elroy packs so much into this story that it really helps a lot if you lived through those times-though I don't know that anyone who did live through them should have to do it again by reading this book.
Rating:
Summary: Perplexed. The Cold Six Thousand.
Review: After just finishing this epic novel I found myself wondering what others thought and when I went through the reviews I was seriously perplexed by how many people thought this was a weak book and how irritated they were by the writing style. First and foremost this is the second part in a series and unlike the L.A. Quartet which changed main characters almost each novel this one is following the same, well almost all of the same through a large labyrinthian plot line. To say this one is flawed is ludicrous because it is setting up the final act of the series, the story is yet to be finished. Although I do admit that this book lacks some of the punch that American Tabloid had, up until I reached 600 I was so worried about what was going to happen that I stopped reading it for a few days.
Ellroy's characters are so well drawn and go through so many personal changes throughout the novel it's just amazing. Particularly Wayne Tedrow Jr. who I actually began to dislike. And I think for that reason is why some people had trouble with the book, that the main characters weren't the best guys and they had trouble relating to characters with such ambivalence and average readers are not used to that. The writing style is very apt for the book to. The most interesting thing about the style of Ellroy's prose was even without long paragraphs of descriptions I found it more descriptive in mood and tone and I was able to place myself into the book more. Brief mentions of the air in the room or a gunshot outside, those brief statements say more then attempting to throw bland and over used metaphors and analogies all over the place. It's a huge book and throughly engaging the whole time and even at 672 pages I am led to want more and it felt appropriate for the story - which also bothers me. What the hell are people talking about when they say there is no story? There is more story in this book then the simplistic plots of so many books. Ellroy's books are so densely plotted and tight that if someone tries to undermine the book they are just being ridiculous. People complaining about this book are only revealing that they are not willing to embrace new and interesting styles and writing and large complex plot lines. Truly one of our greatest contemporaries and a great example of his work. P.S. when I read people saying that this was their first and last Ellroy book I couldn't believe it. Get a clue, this is the second in the series, if you can read the book you should be able to read somewhere that it's the second in the series.
Rating: 
Summary: "Ellroy shunned adjectives. Ellroy waxed ...
Review: ...brilliant. Ellroy spritzed '60s tumult, concurrant."
This is an incredible book in terms of both form and substance. Unlike many reviewers who can't get past the terse, spartan prose, I found it a breeze. More importantly, I found the terse, clipped style made the characters believable because it seemed a reflection of how they think and act.
And few who did not enjoy the style as much as me have noted that the third-person rat-a-tat-tat is modulated every few pages by the insertion of telephone call transcripts, memoranda and news clippings, all written in a more traditional style.
This was my first experience of Ellroy, but it won't be my last. He is one of the most refreshing and original American writers working today.
Rating: 
Summary: couldn''t read it
Review: i picked up this book in hope of learning a little about the troubled times it is set in...knowing that ellroy was behind the great 'l.a. confidential' i was expecting great things...but i just couldn't read it because of ellroys individual style..."see spot. see spot run. see spot run after ball."...no sentence is longer than five words...it is utterly unreadable to me and a great dissapointment..."see book. see me. see me throw book in trash."
Rating:
Summary: Great Story, but Ellroy slips a bit
Review: The works of James Ellroy became a bit of an obsession for me after I read the prequel to this novel "American Tabloid". It was grand, epic, and full of detailed characters that showed the seedy underbelly of the "innocent age" of American History. "The Cold Six Thousand" is the second in a planned triolgy of books on this era. It too is epic in scope and vision, and it too tells a great story, but something is off about this book, and to me it seems that the story is TOO big, and for the first time I can think of, Ellroy give us a poorly drawn main character. First, the story. It is entertaining throughout, and there is never a dull moment. It picks up directly where "American Tabloid" left off, Dallas on the day of the Kennedy Assasination, with two of the consiprators and main characters from "Tabloid", Pete Bondurant, Mob Muscle and sometimes CIA operative, and Ward Littell, Lawyer to the Mob and Howard Hughes, and newly reninstated operative for J. Edgar Hoover. Bondurant has just gotten married and is in town to watch the fireworks. Littell is flown in by Hoover to make sure and FBI connection to the assasination is erased. A third main character is also introduced here, Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a Las Vegas Cop who has been paid the titular $6000 to kill a pimp running from the mob in Vegas. With his usual style for conspiracy and plot, Ellroy weaves all of these stories into the same fabric, as coincidence and circumstance draw these three together over the 1960's, covering a Mob plot to bilk Howard Hughes, Heroin smuggling in Vietnam, and various other 60's conspiracies that Oliver Stone would love to call his own. Ellroy is definitly writing fiction. He's not spinning a yarn he thinks is the truth, he's just telling an interpretation of what MIGHT have happened. And it's gripping reading, written in his now-perfected staccatto prose. However, the story is actually too big. Too many plot threads are woven together to get these three main characters together again and again. By putting them at the center of every big event of the 60's, Ellroy is simply asking too much of the reader. The consipracies are too vast and too connected, unlike the rather simple JFK assasination theory offered up in "Tabloid". While this novel remains intense, it drifts too much too often to rank among his finest work. The second problem is teh character of Wayne Tedrow, Jr. He is too simply drawn, his motivation and desires too obvious for him to be as deep and conflicted as Bonderant and Littell. All we know is he hates his father but has his father's rage. And that's all there is too him. For Ellroy, who has painted such marvelous characters such as Edmund Exley and Buzz Meeks in previous work, this is almost sad. But it is forgiveable as Littell just gets more and more conflicted and complicated, and Bonderant has to make incredibly difficult decisions. I would give the book 3 1/2 stars if I was able, but since I can't, I give it a 4, because it's closer to a four. Ellroy still hasn't written a BAD novel in my opinion, but I prefer even "The Black Dahlia" to "The Cold Six Thousand", which probably puts me in the minority. It's is still a great read, if not a great book, and for any Ellroy fan I recommend it. If you're new to Ellroy, pick up "American Tabloid" or "The Big Nowhere" first, and if you like what you read, head over to this one. You need to know Ellroy before you can truly enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: There won't be a third.....
Review: If Ellroy does not make things better, we'll not como to read the alented third part of this trilogy... This book is even larger than AMERICAN TABLOID, without half that one's charisma and pacing. It's an endless procession of characters and short sentences (I'm being kind in saying "short"...). I also had enough of bad guys like Littell and Bondurant always getting away with it all. It seems Ellroy is exorcizing himself and saying to everybody: "everybody is corrupt, nobody is good".Enough. AMERICAN TABLOID was enough for me.
Rating:
Summary: The best he's done
Review: Ellroy evolves. He overwhealms. He rallies. I love the structure, you can almost hear the clickety-clack of the typewriter as he writes. The use of a-many thousand short sentences are a bit of a pain to read, but those who make the effort are well rewarded!
Rating:
Summary: I feel so dirty
Review: This man should either be given a Pulitzer or arrested immediately. Reading him is like getting in a claw-hammer fight. I'm going to take a shower now.
Rating:
Summary: I usually like Ellroy, but...
Review: I tried, but I just couldn't get through this one. I really liked Ellroy's "Black Dahlia", "L.A. Confidential" and "American Tabloid" but I couldn't make myself finish this book. It's a sequel to "American Tabloid" and explores the cover-up behind the JFK assassination. It's graphically violent, but that's not what turned me off. Ellroy's rapid-fire style is overdone in this book. In the first 120 pages (as far as I was able to read), I bet there wasn't a sentence that was more than 5 or 6 words long. Most were three. The paragraphs were one or two sentences at most. It felt like reading "Dick shot Jane." Here's an example from the first page of the novel: "The Casino Operators Council flew him. They supplied first-class fare. They tapped their slush fund. They greased him. They fed him six cold." Ugh. I simply couldn't face another 440 pages of this. Ellroy's been hailed as a writer of classic noir. Up to this point, I'd have agreed. I'm sure there are some out there that will get a kick out of his style. But, this time around, I'm not one of them.
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