The Cold Six Thousand

Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable Book - A Pain in the Neck
Review: The Cold Six Thousand, the sequel to American Tabloid, is the second book in a triology that tells the FICTITIOUS story of how a group of rogue ex-FBI-agents and ex-cops shape and manipulate American history. The series is set between Kennedy's rise to power in the late 1950s and Nixon's resignation in 1974. The Cold Six Thousand starts off with the investigation of the Kennedy assassination in late 1963. Sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident, the book's protagonists get involved in national elections, Cuba, Vietnam, the mob's takeover of Las Vegas, the civil rights movement, and finally the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
It is absolutely fascinating to see how Ellroy succeeds at weaving through the labyrinth of historic events without ever losing the historic thread. And then the story: It goes crash, boon, bang, it's a staccato of plots, counterplots, intrigues, betrayls, murder, revenge, and redemption. The Cold Six Thousand is not a casual read, on the contrary: Its characters and events will remain with the reader for a long time.
Unfortunately, however, the book has more than its fair share of shortcomings.
One is the role the Mafia plays throughout the whole story. Ellroy tries to make us believe that the mob was THE driving force behind most of the events that made the 60s such an explosive pandemonium. Carlos Marcellos and Co. are portrayed as all-powerful and omnipotent. Is is almost as if the Outfit works like the law of nature: No man can escape it, even the mightiest must surrender to its will.
Then there are the never-ending outbursts of violence. Raw, graphic, violence that is. In one scene, a Mafia killer tells a fellow hitman how he cracked a woman's skull in a vice; in another, Ellroy describes with relish how Pete Bondurant takes a man out by tearing up and grabbing deep down his throat. In American Tabloid, the violence made sense; Ellroy used it to paint a realistic portrait of a violent era. In The Cold Six Thousand, much of the violence is superfluous and simply gross. I believe that a novelist talks to his readers; in American Tabloid Ellroy seemed to say "I don't like this epidemic of violence, either, but it is my duty as a chronicler to report it". In this book, however, he actually seems to enjoy and take pleasure in it.
Another problem is the language. Short, fragmented sentences. Sometimes they actually add to the excitement; more often, though, they are plainly annoying.
Finally, I feel that Ellroy is a much better writer of hard-boiled fiction than of romance. Too many men fall in love with too few women. Wayne loves Lynette, Janice, and Barb. Littel loves Jane, Barb, and Janice. How these women hold such an attraction for every man they run across and make them not just want them but actually truly love them remains a mystery.
In conclusion, I would like to stress my belief that a GREAT writer like Ellroy is clearly not oblivious to these flaws (at least not to the ones that have been pointed out by a large number of reviewers, which gives our criticism a certain degree of legitimacy). As a matter-of-fact, I don't know very much about him, but I can't help my suspicion that he feels he has reached a level that gives him the right not to give a damn about his readers. I will most definitely read the last book in the series once it is publised; however, I also feel it is time to move on and turn to another author.

Rating:
Summary: I'm done
Review: The first James Ellroy book I read was American Tabloid. I loved it. It was interesting, different, engaging.
After finishing it I went on an Ellroy bender: Black Dahlia, White Jazz, Hollywood Nocturnes.
I had to put this one down halfway through...something I rarely do. Why?
The book is long. The plot is TOO convoluted, the prose is choppy. Almost Dick & Jane like.
The author does not paint a vivid picture with the use of short sentences...with such brevity, it's impossible to create characters...as a result the characters become interchangable.
In American Tabloid, I knew who Kemper Boyd was and why he was different than Pete Bondurant or Ward Littell. In this book Wayne Tedrow, Jr, could be Ward Littell. Most of the supporting characters (The "Kadre," for instance) are completely indistinguishable.
Don't get me wrong, Ellroy's writing style has always been "tight" but I never noticed it as much as I did here. It interfered with the story.
I'm probably done reading Ellroy because of this book, which is a shame. Try American Tabloid, Black Dahlia, or White Jazz.

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: "The concept rocked".
Review: This is an astoundingly good novel. What is most striking about it is James Ellroy's buckshot prose, which he has taken to a new level, even for him. It scans almost like beat poetry.

Virtually every page (of 700 odd) is studded with short (and I mean *really* short, even by Ellroy's standards), staccato sentences repeating phrases in groups of three: "Frank was a doctor. Frank had bad habits. Frank made bad friends."; "Wayne yawned. Wayne pulled carbons. The fine print blurred."

I can see that this could, quite reasonably, prove extremely irritating, but I found that it gave the novel a real rhythm, like a Bo Diddley jungle beat. That sounds pretentious, I know, but if you read it (and buy into it) you'll see what I mean. And it is used to extremely good, often comic effect.

As is the case with all Ellroy's novels, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and (for the most part) short, although it must be said the principal protagonists do, by comparison, seem blessed with unfeasible longevity, and the plot is so Byzantine as to make Constantinople look like a one horse town: Cuba, Vietnam, Howard Hughes, the Vegas mafia, JFK's assassination, RFK's assassination, the Klan, Martin Luther King's assassination - it's all here, and in Ellroy's universe it's all inextricably linked.

I doubt it has any value as history (whether or not it is, Ellroy is clearly steeped in the history of the era), but it's such an exhilarating read, it really doesn't matter.

Olly Buxton

Rating:
Summary: Subject verb object dot
Review: This was my first Elrroy's books. I didn't have the American Tabloid at the time, and I can say, that even though it would had helped to read the first part first (this is the second book of the announced Underground USA Trilogy), it hit me inside, and made me an instantaneous Ellroy fan. One may say that the narrative (688 pages that goes subject, verb, object, dot) is hard to get started with, when you get into the book it just stop making that huge difference... Maybe the 688 pages are a bigger problem themselves...).

While one of the main character of American Tabloid goes off scene (While Ward Littel and Pete Bondurant stays), there comes Wayne Tedrow Jr. a very well created character, urging to explode with anger, and beside, trying not to show it. His dubious way of thinking/acting all over the story is the hook that get Wayne going (when will be - if so - the crackdown?, you can feel it during the book)

Much has been said about the story so I wont go long on this subject. Ellroy put his trio working directly and undirectly for J. Edgar Hoover and the MOB, in a way they are responsible for turning the main wheels of many historical American spots from 1963 to 1968. They are, in the Ellroy fictional world, the men behind the scenes.

About the prose style, again, as the Author himself said, this was entirelly proposital. This is the story of three angry, racist white men from the 60's. He writes in their language. The language of the obligation: Do it. Kill him. Get this. Go there and read the book. Pete likes those who read the book. Pete is kind with the ones who've read the book. Pete go easy on them.

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.