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: 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: 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. ****
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. ****
Rating:
Summary: if you know, then there you go
Review: have you read Ellory before? have you put in your time in the L.A. books? Have you traced the evil that was dudley smith from his intro (not officially in the L.A. books, but if you know, then there you go) to when he took a wolverine to the face? If so, then you may be ready for this. M-16 prose, chain-saw whiplash violence, a kracked, krazy, kaleidescope view of the dekades that shaped amerika. No joke, if you haven't been on the bus, then this one will leave you behind and wondering what's up. I wasn't down with "Tabloid" -- too much plot and not enough of the pulse of the bad men who shape the world we call life. But this one runs the pulse like a spurting artery. Annoying prose? You know it. Strobe-light, beatnik jazz-like, hop-head krazee? That's just the beginning. The demon dog's going deep into what makes amerika the place it is. It simply isn't for you if you haven't been on the ride before this. All you've have is guestions and wonder what the hell's up. But if you've been listening to the white jazz and wolverine blues for a while, this is the apotheosis. Don't get me wrong -- Big Nowhere, LA Confid and White Jazz blow white hot compared to this, but for the dark places of the '60s, from Saigon to West LV and how they touch today, Ellroy's ride is rough, rambunctious and strangely vulnerable. You'll shudder, you'll wish for a shower, but you'll come through to the dawn with a burned-pure soul that's earned. Bring on the next. And really, can you not but wish that the big dog would turn his eye on what's been going on with today's unknown, unsung bad men, in places distant, dusty and shaped by bad, bad, power (and golf)? Oh, yeah -- and for the first time, cats (CATS) get their moment in the light -- and they make the dogs look like pussies.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant but not for everyone
Review: I am a huge fan of Ellroy, and this book did not disappoint. I loved it. Fans of Ellroy who have not already bought it should do so immediately.
If you are not a fan or have never read Ellroy, than be forewarned, this is a challenging book to read, well worth the effort, but difficult none-the-less. Ellroy does not hold the reader's hand and guide them along through the book. The slang and style of Ellroy's prose can leave the reader saying "huh?". The reader should expect to be baffled at times. However this is part of the fun and Ellroy always eventually clarifies later in his own way.
Rating: 
Summary: Relentlessly violent jaunt through the Sixties
Review: I've only read this book, not knowing it was part of a trilogy. For another great (shorter) trilogy, check out Ellroy's L.A. NOIR; three novels with psycho-genius cop Hopkins and his psycho-genius antagonists. With THE COLD SIX THOUSAND, I think Ellroy is trying to pull off a sometimes impressive feat that often falls flat. The first page grabbed me. That's all you'll need. The characters are wonderful. Wayne Jr.'s evolution in Ellroy's morally dead world is often fascinating. Big Pete is a great, almost operatic figure. You find yourself empathizing with these characters who are really horribly racist, spiritually empty fascists and psychopaths. The intrigue is the fuel that keeps you going. I'm just glad he didn't drag it out with some spin tying in John Lennon's murder. That said, the darn thing is too long, and not particularly well-written. Good editing would have pared a lot of redundancies. The clipped sentences Ellroy deploys get mind-numbing, and feel very contrived most of the time. I don't know what he's up to, but it comes off as some Hemingway-meets-meth style that simply aggravates. Eventually, the pattern gets so old that you find your eyes floating over them. At least they're grammatically correct for the most part, and don't destroy the overall narrative (check out T. Harris' ludicrous HANNIBAL for that effect). Repetitive phrasing is aggravating. Any sentence longer than four words is something along the lines of: "[Wayne/Pete/Ward] went and *braced* said [someone/something], which *vibed* très boocoo [hophead/Fed/swish/Klan/etc.] blah blah blah." Everything and everyone seems to be getting *braced* at any given moment. Insane. I'm serious; entire pages are filled with that basic sentence patter over and over. Ellroy might be trying to get us into the speech patterns of this world, but it mostly comes off as contrived. That and obsessively stupid klannish konversions of words to 'k' beginnings: "The krappy kotten krop was karted to Karson City." Ick. But don't let that deter you. And if you don't like it, don't give up on James Ellroy. He and Elmore Leonard are the best at what they do.
Rating:
Summary: Tabloid 2
Review: James Ellroy's "The Cold Six Thousand" lacks the kinetic energy of its brilliant predecessor "American Tabloid." Beginning minutes after "Tabloid's" close, "The Cold Six Thousand" traces the underworld history of 1960s America through the morally-impaired eyes of three men: Wayne Tedrow, Jr., a Vegas cop sent to Dallas on a mob errand; Ward Littell, an FBI agent whose loyalties shift from the mob to J. Edgar Hoover and Howard Hughes; and Pete Bondurant, an ex-LA sheriff's department officer with an obsessive dream to liberate Cuba from the Communists. While "American Tabloid" covered a reletively brief period of time (1959 to 1963) and focused on the rise and fall of JFK, "The Cold Six Thousand" finishes off the radical sixties and leaps back and forth between historical events (RFK and Martin Luther King assassinations, the Baptist church bombing that killed four black girls, moving heroin in Saigon and the mob's takeover of Vegas) without leading up to anything. And the charcter arcs aren't as well developed as they were "Tabloid" (Ward Littell's brilliant, stunning, earth-shattering comeback from despair in "American Tabloid" makes him one of the most complex of Ellroy's creations.) Though this novel tends to meander, it is hard to dismiss it as an inferior companion piece to "American Tabloid." All the typical Ellroy flourishes are present: dense plotting, scant character and place descriptions, graphic (to the point of absurdity in some places) violence, mixing fictional and historical people, and the three-man construct he first employed in his brilliant 1987 novel "The Big Nowhere." Ellroy may attribute his genius to his ability to create ultra-dense plots filled with characters numbering in the hundreds. However, his real brilliance lies in the fact that he creates such monumentally unsympathetic heroes as his leads. If there is anything Ellroy will be remembered for it will be for straying from the typical "hero" found in mystery fiction today (the beautiful, brilliant "insert your law enforcement title here" vs. the diabolical serial killer "insert gruesome modus operandi here.") Ellroy's heroes are flawed, reckless and corrupt. Liking them takes time. And "The Cold Six Thousand" delivers this in spades. Also evident is Ellroy's unique tele-type writing style. An example: "Pete punched. Pete kicked. Pete walked." For a while this has been a welcome Ellroy trademark in a craft where so many authors are wordy and overbearing in their descriptions. However, reading 688 pages of this ratta-tat-tat style is tiring and, at times, a bit tedious. It's too bad because I loved his prose in books like "Clandestine" and "The Black Dahlia." Then again, neither novel comes remotely close to the ambitious breadth of his latest work. First time Ellroy readers would be better off beginning with his famous LA Quartet of "The Big Nowhere," "LA Confidential," "White Jazz," and "The Black Dahlia." Only the experienced Ellroy reader need apply to "The Cold Six Thousand."
Rating:
Summary: Style vs. Story
Review: Let me just say this: I am a fan of experimental prose styles. I read Ulysses for chrissake. But these choppy ass little sentences seemed trite and annoying. I don't give a damn if he was trying to emulate a strobe light or whatever herky jerky thing he was trying to do, it interfered with the STORY and that, for me, is a no-no. Couldn't finish the damn thing. So I consider the time I tried wasted. Don't waste my time. Don't waste yours.
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