Rating: 
Summary: Not his best.
Review: After having devoured Ellroy's LA Quartet and American Tabloid, I was really looking forward to this next installment. The style in which it is written, however, proved to be a major obstacle in the enjoyment of this book. Ellroy chose to write in a kind of staccato style that was extremely annoying to me. "He did this. He did that. He said this. He said that." The whole book seemed to be written in sentences of about 5 words. Not his best effort
Rating:
Summary: Ugly America was never so Beautiful
Review: While this was not quite as gripping as American Tabloid, it is still worth a read. Just seeing Pete Bondurant back in action again was great. However I have a new favorite character in Wayne Tedrow Jr. I can see him, Dwight Holly, and Fred O. as the three characters in the next book. I can honestly say that I did not see Ward's ending coming. I won't ruin it for anyone, but I was shocked. I cannot wait for the next book in this trilogy. Ellroy writing the Nixon years. One can only imagine what will happen.
Rating: 
Summary: The REAL Rat Pack is back!
Review: Pete, Ward, and a new member of the Kingmaker Trio, Wayne Tedrow Jr. join forces to once again wreak havoc and rewrite history at the hands of James Ellroy in 700+ ages of conspiracy theory mayhem. "The Cold 6000" moves much faster than "American Tabloid" and will keep you more riveted with more plot twists and turns, and an ending that will knock your socks off. But the most intriguing part of "6000" are the details of Peter Bondurant's latest misguided patriotic caper: running white horse from Laos to Las Vegas. In between, we get J. Edgar Hoover pulling everyone's strings, Robert F. Kennedy plotting vengeance for his brother's murder, and of course Drac, aka Howard Hughes, trying to take over Las Vegas. Even tricky Dick Nixon makes a cameo, setting up what should be a thrilling conclusion of this trio that takes American history, and turns it upside down. About the only complaint is that Ellroy's writing seems choppier in "6000", and I must deduct one star as there are times you simply cannot understand what he is talking about, and must reread the paragraph. But the chop socky would be smoothie tough guy rhythm is still fun to read, and reading "The Cold 6000" is like being tied to a chair and pistol-whipped by Carlo Marcello. Only you get to sip a margarita at poolside while reading about it.
Rating:
Summary: Extreme Read
Review: This is the first work of Mr. Ellroy's that I have read. My comments are probably appropriate for other newcomers as this may not be the only time he has written a novel as this one is constructed. The novel is unlike anything else I have read. The first test of whether you will like this work, or quickly put it down, is how well you adapt to almost 700 pages of rapid fire prose, presented as brief sentences, and occasionally sentence fragments. There are times when passages actually rhyme, although I think these moments were unplanned. If you imagine a sentence where a person may perform several tasks, or have multiple thoughts, or even use more than one adjective, then just make a sentence of each individual action. Every movement is presented as a stand-alone event; every thought is singular, every action broken down in to component parts. I had several false starts with this book, however once I adjusted to its extremely rapid-fire cadence, the format ceased to be unusual. Do not switch back and forth from this and a more traditional book for I believe few would manage to stay with Mr. Ellroy. I don't know whether this was an experiment on his part or a specific format he felt best carried his thoughts to readers. I am inclined to believe it was the latter. The book covers a period of time from the JFK assassination up to the election for president that would bring Nixon to The White House. There have been many takes on this time period and how historic events not only took place, but that they may also have been engineered. Whether you feel Oswald was a lone gunman or not, and how you feel about the circumstances regarding the killing of both Martin Luther King, and RFK, the book is an interesting read. Read, "The Cold Six Thousand", as a novel or as counter factual history and the book works. For those who do feel there was a conspiracy or two or three regarding the events this book covers, the reader will enjoy the work based on how well the author's thoughts match the reader's. The world this book travels in is one of distrust, paranoia, conspiracy, betrayal, and every other emotion that would disillusion a person. The author may have broken the prose in to as many pieces as he did, as that is a way that people in these situations would think, it is how they would act. Planning is not done in a rush of thought, rather step by step. Long-term relationships that fail or turn do so over time. The ultimate break comes after a series of events that taken as a whole become unbearable. Paranoia too takes time to infect a person, especially if it is to kill a relationship that has existed, and based on trust for years. The book is well worth whatever extra effort is required to get acquainted with the format. What may seem tedious at first becomes methodical as the story unfolds. Not everyone will enjoy the book, I stuck it out, and I'm glad I did.
Rating:
Summary: It won't kill you to wait for the paperback.
Review: I'll chime in and say that this one's a bit of a let-down. While we get a continuation, and even an augmentation of the writing style more or less perfected in American Tabloid, it's no improvement. Ellroy has pared down his prose to the point where he no longer considers verbs necessary. The communiques and newspaper headlines that showed up in Tabloid thus take a greater role in advancing the narrative, and reading pages and pages of these doesn't excite. The styles this book locks itself into aren't great for conveying much in the way of suspense, emotional content, excitement, or really anything. I remember an interview where Ellroy was talking about how it was more difficult to write effectively about a love relationship (specifically, Barb and Pete's) after a few years, as opposed to in the beginning, and he doesn't seem to have found a solution. The Cold Six Thousand goes light on dialogue, and so crises in Barb and Pete's relationship are pithily summarized instead of fully dramatized. We don't get to hear much of what they say or think. This could have been one of the more interesting parts of the book, especially considering that we already know what historical events the book is concerned with and how these events turn out, and we also know that the protagonists, Howard Hughes and J. E. Hoover are all going to be involved in them in fairly predictable ways. And the characters who carry over from Tabloid do act predictably, often repeating things they did in the previous novel. While it is, of course, in character, it gets pretty dull to read about Pete B's Tiger Kab operations and boat raids into Cuba all over again. It's puzzling why these were resurrected and reprised in a second novel. The end result of all this is that The Cold Six Thousand comes across as American Tabloid 1 1/2, rather than a full-blown book in its own right. Here's hoping number three finds a new style and a different slant on history.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: This book was my first look at Ellroy's works. I am so glad I tried another one, after I read this, that showed me a better side of the author. Not one charactar in this book had any redeeming qualities and some of them were just plain boring to read about. The setting in the 60's was interesting. The poignant portrayal of J. Edgar Hoover was the best part of the book. I saw Ellroy on The O'Reilly Factor so I gave the book a try. It was a disappointment. For a better look at Ellroy's exceptional writing talents try the Big Nowhere, Black Dahlia, or LA Confidential. Unless the Kennedy, King assasinations and conspiracies interest you, pass this one up.
Rating:
Summary: Ellroy riffs again
Review: In "The Cold Six-Thousand," the great crime noir novelist James Ellroy picks up right where he left off in 1995's brilliant, unsettling "American Tabloid." It's Nov. 22, 1963, Dealey Plaza in Dallas. JFK's blood is fresh, and the smoke has barely dissipated from the gun of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Weaving fact and fiction into a bloody tapestry of American politics and culture, Ellroy has created a sequel that is messy, disturbing, excessively violent and, if not as coherent and unified as its forebear, nonetheless still compelling. "The Cold Six-Thousand" allows Ellroy to expand on at least a couple of his epic preoccupations: the fact that America was never innocent (the memorable first line of "American Tabloid"), and that history, as only Ellroy could put it, is best understood when seen through the eyes of its leg-breakers. The result is nearly 700-pages-worth of corrupt pols, mob bosses, low lifes, pimps, whores, drug runners, lounge lizards and hit men blowing to smithereens the illusion of an America grounded in freedom and tolerance. Two of American Tabloid's pivotal characters return: Ward Littell, the ex-Seminarian turned lawyer who somehow works (and occasionally kills) for Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover and Jimmy Hoffa; and Pete Bondurant, the equally corrupt and brutal ex-Marine who is largely animated by his ferocious ant-communism (particulary with regard to Cuba) as well as his casual racism. To this mix Ellroy adds a third fictional protagonist, Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a young Vegas cop unwittingly sucked into the vortex of the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath by his loathsome father, a right-wing Mormon who publishes racist hate tracts and pals around with both the Mob and the Klan. As with "American Tabloid," Ellroy throws his fictional characters into the blender of documented history. Tedrow, Littell and Bondurant are indeed leg-breakers whose twisted privilege it is to travel the years spanning 1963-1968, from Vegas to Laos and all points between, and to help spur the demise of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Their assassinations bring the novel to a climax and allow Ellroy, in the ruthless manner of Bondurant, to employ his own literary silencer as he sadistically muffles the American ideal. King and Kennedy play substantial roles here, as do numerous other high- and low-rollers from Vegas, Hollywood, and D.C.: Bayard Rustin, Sal Mineo, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Sonny Liston. But no true-life character is reprised with greater panache than J. Edgar Hoover. Ellroy savagely (and with justification) caricatures the FBI overlord as a kind of pixilated and paranoid auteur responsible, both directly and indirectly, for the savagery visited upon the Kennedys and King, as well as for the infiltration of gangsterism into the body politic. Ellroy's signature style -- simple declarative sentences (conjunctions be damned!) assaulting our senses like bass lines blasting from a stereo speaker -- might be viewed as off-putting or bordering on self-parody. Yet this seeming structural simplicity accretes into a dense, almost Joycean landscape where corruption, betrayal and greed are the only consistent signpoints. Plot lines overlap, sub-plots develop and then meander away, narrative voices shift, locales change and character motivations blur. In the end, our worst national nightmares -- JFK, RFK, and King; Vietnam -- seem even grimmer in their inevitability, thanks to Ellroy's profane but virtuoso riff on the dark underbelly of American history.
Rating:
Summary: Overkill
Review: The Cold Six Thousand is so overstylized that the plot is almost impossible to track. Ellroy is trying too hard to be literary.
Rating: 
Summary: Shame
Review: Who to blame? No, I don't mean for the JFK hit. That Ellroy recycles the conspiracy-theory plot for TCST is not the problem. Rather, who let him get away with publishing this DRECK. Did somebody convince him that he is an artiste and could get away with self-indulgent stylistic experiment? ... I'm going to burn my (hardcover!) copy and forget I ever read it. If you haven't read Ellroy, read any of the other books; you won't be disappointed. But forget TCST.
Rating:
Summary: Sequel-itis ?
Review: I only recently discovered James Ellroy with his "American Tabloid" and I loved it - see my 5-star review here on Amazon. But this follow-up work seems fundamentally flawed. Ellroy has taken a narrow slice from the wide range of techniques he employed in "Tabloid" - the staccato burst from a clip of short sentences - and used it almost exclusively here. In "Tabloid" it served to offset a certain tone or frame of mind for a character. Here it never stops, wearing away at your willingness to persevere as a reader the same way a machine-gun shreds a paper target. Overkill. I was also struck by the artificiality of the means used to create storyline continuity for the characters hatched and molded in "Tabloid." The staccato approach can hardly fill-in such gaps. Instead we are treated to an overuse of another styling from "Tabloid": the pseudo-memo. These "Directors Eyes Only" notes and the like, to or from the FBI's Hoover or the protagonists, are stretched overlong to catch the reader up to speed on character's history and motives generated in the earlier work. The quirky tone established for Hoover and some other characters in "Tabloid" is blurred by this approach. Finally, I have to say that the character epiphanies that concluded "Tabloid" seemed a little lame back then. But after such a sustained 200 mph run through the dark side of the American soul a few neat wraps did not distract. Here, in "Cold Six Thousand", I find the 'remodeled' characters from "Tabloid" strangely two-dimensional in contrast to their earlier forms. Some of them, (e.g. Howard Hughes) are just too weird for too long - what was fascinating is just odd by the second book. Some of them seem wholly transformed between the ending of "Tabloid" on the afternoon of 11/22/63 and the beginning of this book just a few hours later. If you've read "American Tabloid" I think this book will disappoint you as it did me. If you haven't read the former, much of "Cold Six Thousand" will seem just peculiar and flat... don't judge Ellroy by this flatness - set this one aside and read "Tabloid" instead.
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