Rating: 
Summary: Gives the phrase 'hard boiled crime fiction' a new meaning
Review: Wow. Five hundred pages of this stuff leaves you reeling. As somebody who's never read James Ellroy before, I picked up The Big Nowhere and was immediately captivated by it. The language Ellroy uses is sharp and fast, with sentences punched out so quickly and concisely that each paragraph is dense with info. The characters are extremely well drawn and are especially interesting because they have personal motivations for entering into and becoming involved in certain cases. The chapters involving Danny Upshaw stand out as the best.The plot is labyrinthe. Suffice to say, it's about three cops who become immersed in police corruption, serial murder, Communist witch-hunts and the underworld of homosexual prostitution. The violence is brutal and Ellroy pulls no punches in his descriptions - the entire novel hits you like a freight train. It winds its way to an excellent conclusion and never seems forced or contrived. All the pieces of the puzzle finally fit together nicely. After reading this I immediately moved on to the next one in the Dudley Smith series, 'LA Confidential'.
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