Rating: 
Summary: I enjoyed it, but not as much as American Tabloid
Review: I am not going to even begin to try and recap this book, because it is best the reader goes into in unaware and others have done a thorough job. I will say that as good as this book is, and it is very good, and as good as Ellroy is, and he is very good, this book fell short of my expectations.
I rather like his style of writing, but one thing bothered me. this may sound trivial, but after a while it is down right annoying: everyone released bodily fluids or threatened too every time they got scared, and they got scared way too often. Even the really hardcore, stone cold killers we have met before, they are always relieving themselves into their pants. why? Why are they shocked by every little thing, when this is the business they have chosen.
That too me diminished the quality of the book, the author, the story and the characters.
The plot was a little trite and I am bothered by the ending, but overall this was a satisfactory read.
Rating:
Summary: the demon dog strikes again
Review: This Ellroy guy is dangerous. You will definitely lose some sleep going through this one, and those precious dreams will be infiltrated by thugs and Vegas goons wielding hypodermics. Such is the fate of the die-hard Ellroy fan, of which I am now one. While this took longer to grab me than most of his books, and sometimes the writing style got to be a little repetitive... The way he just writes one sentence And another To give you the sense that tension is building inside his characters. Somehow it all comes together and works in the end. I've heard him described as a 'Noir Dr. Seuss' and this description does seem apt, though it's more like Seuss channeled through Celine's dark sarcasm. The prose style especially recalls that proto-fascist genius. I was also reminded of the Russians...no one in particular, but in the way the story kept building and building until you were at page 500 and suddenly sucked in (this novel takes a good 200-300 pages to get into). While I am sure I missed half of what went on and would have benefitted from a more recent reading of 'American Tabloid', this is still a very strong book on its own. I also highly recommend seeing Ellroy read in person-he's like the George Carlin of pulp fiction. The man had all of us in stitches. I am looking forward to the third part...what will he do with the Watergate years? The mind reels.
Rating: 
Summary: The Good, the Bad, and the Americans
Review: Just when I thought I'd read every possible method of corpse disposal James Ellroy could come up with, somebody's mother's head shows up in the refrigerator. Mr. Ellroy is a diabolical author, and that means diabolically funny as well. He snared me with prose that reads like a shoot-out in "American Tabloid," and kept the pressure on for 700 pages of, "The Cold Six Thousand." And the story he has to tell... If I ever thought the counter-culture of the the sixties was made up of rock and rollers and flower-children, these books have disabused me of that notion. The counter-culture of these books is the world of the bad, and the ugly struggling for power in their private and public relationships. Unlike "American Tabloid," though, there are two or three good guys in the sequel. Not that Mr. Ellroy will allow anyone to be all good, nor should he, there's no entrance for the pure in this story's arena. Like "American Tabloid," there are urges to redemption, but whether or not anyone makes it is up to the reader to find out. "The Cold Six Thousand," continues the arc of "American Tabloid," and gives us an American history from November 22, 1963, to June 9, 1968. From JFK's assassination to the week following RFK's murder in Los Angeles. There's no mystery to the ends of Bobby, Martin, and John, but I still found myself with the "oh, no, not again" reaction of learning these things for the first time, and there is quite a bit of mystery to our knowledge of the conspiracies that surrounded the events. Mr. Ellroy introduces us to the conspirators, their motives, and methods. "The Cold Six Thousand" also gives us a much deeper look into the personal lives of the protagonists (it would be a stretch to call them "heroes".) That look tends to slow the plot, but the writing is deep, and there's a father-son story that would give the Greeks pause. Dissertations are going to be written about these books, they're that rich, and I read on a website there's a third volume in the works. I highly recommend them to anyone interested in modern fiction, American history/myth, or the morality of a world where winning is all.
Rating: 
Summary: Although I'm a huge fan, this just was too much...
Review: Sentence structure? Dialog? A story perhaps? Apparently you don't need any of these things to make a book anymore. Now before all you hardcore Ellroy fans get in an uproar, let me say that I've read almost every book ellroy has done (some of the collections from GQ, I haven't picked up yet), so I'm not basing my review solely on the Cold 6K. My problem is that He seems to have lost his sense of telling a good story. And the 'beat' style wording was inventive and powerful when he started it back in the Big Nowhere & L.A. Confidential, but by American Tabloid, it started to wear thin. I just met Mr. Ellroy at a reading here in St. Paul a few weeks ago. I actually enjoyed the beat style when he read it aloud, but when you're reading for a few hours, it just gets old. It seems like he no longer cares if anyone reads his books, as long as they buy it. anyway, if you're a hardcore fan, you'll probably like it, but if haven't read Ellroy before, for god's sake, don't start with this one! Pick up the Black Dahlia or the Big Nowhere, then start making your way to this one.
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as American Tabloid
Review: The book is the continuation of the story begun in American Tabloid. It starts with the JFK assasination and continues until June of 1968, following the path of Peter B., Ward Littell, and a new character, Wayne Tedrow Jr. The book is filled with typical Ellroy [writing]: corruption, sex, blackmail, etc. Overall, the book is definitly entertaining. It is far from dull and the book never drags; it keeps its intensity through the whole novel. On the other hand, I did not find the book to be as good as American Tabloid. I think the reason I didn't like it as much is there wasn't as much character development, and Ellroy seems to be rushing through things, trying to cover all the big events of the mid to late 1960s. Granted, the book is very very long, but still, there is something missing from the story. Nevertheless, I would recommend this book, especially for a long car or plane ride; it certainly made my 7 hour trip zoom by. Just don't expect it to be as good as American Tabloid.
Rating: 
Summary: The Cold 700 Pages
Review: Let me begin by saying I am a big fan of Ellroy's work. However, this book is dreadful. I kept going back to the cover and looking for a second author. There are only hints of Ellroy's elegant style. The remainder feels forced or imitated. Pick any of his other books. Leave this one to the dollar pile.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating in spite of irritating writing style.
Review: I admire trying writing styles that are a bit different, but this one goes out of bounds way too much. This is a novel about a world that is corrupt as corrupt can be, and deserves a tough-talking narration. This one goes way overboard by expressing it's thoughts via a method of stringing five or six short sentences together, each with just a few words. It's as if each passage is a crime scene that has to be reopened and reinvestigated from every angle, or reinforced by using other adjective to describe the same thing. This type of narration goes on the entire length of this long novel. While it is trying to come off as tough-talking, it just appears as cute. Aside from that, though, hold onto your hat, because you are being taken on a ride through hell in this book. Except that the hell is our own world of the 1960's. It begins roughly with the JFK assasination, and ends with RFK's demise several years later. Between these two events we get to see a world where everyone is so thoroghly corrupt you feel you need a breath of fresh air after awhile. From government to law enforcement to entertainment to crime, everybody involved is so cold and jaundiced you wonder if any of them ever had childhoods. Unfortunately, though, that's ok, because it probably does come close to the feeling of what it's like to deal with people when all the chips are on the political card table. There is no room for the squeamish here, and it reaffirms the healthy skepticism we hold when a public figure tells us something. If only the author would tell it in a slightly different way.
Rating:
Summary: It packs a punch, but it's no American Tabloid
Review: To begin with, let me first state this: I loved American Tabloid. I love it so much that I have read it 8 times already and am currently up to my 9th sitting as we speak. With that out of the way, let me also say that I have only read The Cold 6000 twice. My reasons for this are simple, and I'll try and put it into terms that most people would understand. When I went to see Jackie Brown (a film by Quentin Tarantino), I did so expecting to see another Pulp Fiction - which I love. When I finished watching Jackie Brown, it left me feeling a bit strange. It was a good film, but it wasn't what I was anticipating. It wasn't as good as Pulp Fiction. That's how The Cold Six Thousand made me feel when I put it down for the first time. I waited for years for the sequal to American Tabloid to come out, and when it did... it was different. It wasn't what I expected. Don't get me wrong, The Cold Six Thousand is still a good book. Like any book (except for American Tabloid) it has it's slow paced parts, it's slightly boring parts - all books have these. But what most books don't have is the ability to make you wish you had an extra thumb just to turn the pagers faster to see what happens next - something that no other author can offer. This is the pull that Ellroy's novels have, and The Cold Six Thousand is no exception. It has nearly all your favorite characters from Tabloid, and literally picks up right where Ellroy left of: DALLAS. From there it is a roller-coaster through America's unacknowledged, yet infamous history. The events of the 50's and 60's are some of the few things which really interest me. Like American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand deals with a lot of those events and puts its own little unique spin on them. The Cold Six also offers you new characters to chew on whilst also having the same characters you came to love and hate in Tabloid. In summary, again, this is no American Tabloid. It is a different book. If you're an Ellroy fan, or you have been dying to find out what happens after Tabloid, or even if you're interested in the Mafia, or JFK/RFK, or Vietnam or the CIA's involvement in key events ranging from heroin trafficking, to assassinations, to illegal arms-supplies to far-right nuts in the south - or even if you want to know Ellroy's unique take on what really happened with Martin Luther King and his assassin James Earl Ray - this book is an interesting, provocative, funny, gritty and outright raw read for you. Make your own mind up. Give it a go. And, if you don't like it - just make sure you've still got the reciept. If you're like me and every other Ellroy fan I know, then you won't need it. (The reciept I mean.)
Rating:
Summary: Hated it! Good story, annoyingly contrived style.
Review: I cannot believe I forced myself to finish this book. The prose style was so wierdly 'cutesy' (and I don't mean that in a nice way) that it took everything I had not to ... it. The fact that it had a fairly interesting story line is all that kept me from doing so. I can't help thinking that either Ellroy was taking bad drugs (you know, the kind that makes you think you think that you're a nihilist or a poet) or playing at writing as if he were on said drugs as some sort of beatnik-esoteric-exhibitionist-with-a bad-case-of-ennui exercise. I would have liked it a lot better without the stylistic contortions. It did remind me of 60's coffee-house 'poetry', but I always thought that genre was annoying and mindless, and hasn't it been long ago done to death? I suppose there's a market for that, but is not at all what I care to read. Ellroy is no poet. He should stick to prose or hit the Starbucks circuit. No, wait! Maybe it could be a very bad Saturday Night Live Skit! I generally pass along books to my friends after I read them, but I can't think of a single person who would make it past the first 30 pages of this one, and then they would think I was wierd for even buying it (in hardcover, no less).
Rating:
Summary: Good plot, but the style was annoying as hell
Review: I can't believe I stuck with this book until I finished it. The prose style was soooo contrived and forced, it took everything I had to finish it. Hated it!
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