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Summary: JFK Murder Mystery
Review: A fantastic book, detailing the events leading upto the death of JFK. Ellroys style is unique, aggressive and insightful. His characters ooze with charisma, as he portrays the inner workings of Americas aggencies that stink with corruption. Violence is not rare; neither his obvious gift for this genre. A great read. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Amazing, horrifying, and beautiful in its own sick way
Review: This is a cruel, strange, and brilliant book. To some degree, it doesn't matter how truthful it is -- the point is to massacre the myth structure of America, which the vicious Ellroy does with gusto. His characters are such scum as to be completely appaling but amazingly compelling. And yet there's this extremely vague sense of the writer's moral disgust that seems to make it enjoyable for me. People might think Ellroy is celebrating the characters in his rogues gallery, but I think he's tearing them down as much as building them up. Fabulous. --Thomas S. Roche is the editor of the Noirotica series.
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Summary: One of the best JFK conspiracy theories
Review: With this book James Ellroy jumps from the limitations of the L.A. cops and robbers scene to the grand stage of American political tragedy. This book, as complex, nervy, hard edged and fast paced as we have come to expect of him, tackles the JFK assassination with a cast of characters and a set of assumptions that, while perfectly plausible, paint a very unflattering portrait of America and its institutions. His 'heros' are failed federal agents and excops. Their milieu is the world of unofficial power where the Mafia, the Cuban resistance movement, the CIA, FBI, businessmen (Howard Hughes) and government officials all intersect in a boiling stew of competing agendas and disastrous subtrafuges. The result is a multifaceted plot that mingles elements of coincidence, accident and outright conspiracy to explain the assassination of JFK. The story is ugly and absolutely believeable. There is no attempt to pretend that this is history. Lots of history is ignored here for the sake of a clear human story, but the result is a very rich, many layered story of corrupt, corruptable and corrupting men whose limited ambitions and actions result in the killing of the president. Over the years James Ellroy has turned into one of the great, true voices of the darker side of American life. No other story has given him such free reign to express his talent as does this one. A real achievement and a head spinning experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much of a great thing
Review: This one gets three stars for an Ellroy, though it would be four stars or more for most other writers. After his superb L.A. quartet, Ellroy apparently wanted to tackle the underbelly of the entire nation mid-century. The result is rapid-fire and messy, yet compelling as always. I find myself turning the pages of Ellroy's novels, even the simpler early ones, too fast to grasp all of the plot, and it doesn't really matter. But in this book there are a lot of four- and five-word sentences in one- to three-sentence paragraphs; it's like trying to read machine-gun fire. And along with the cast of a half dozen major characters, there are dozens of walk-ons, from John and Robert Kennedy to Jimmy Hoffa. This poses several difficulties. For one thing, our own mental images of these personages tend to get in the way of Ellroy's portrayal of them, which is usually not deep and detailed enough to overcome our version. Even the main characters are more sketchy than the ones in his L.A. novels. I don't get as firm a sense of them -- or of the landscape -- as I do in The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere and so on. The plots are no less complicated in the L.A. novels, but they work better: reading them feels less like skipping across the surface of a turbulent lake. American Tabloid is sort of an MTV-style police procedural/political thriller/noir. As gripping as always, but just not as satisfying as Ellroy's best work.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and appalling
Review: This is without a doubt one of the most horrid things that I have ever read. Three protaganists, an amoral undercover FBI agent, his weak guilt ridden colleague, and a huge and ferocious rogue ex-LA Deputy Sheriff. The cast include mafiosi, lawyers, Cuban partisans, Boston Brahmins, CIA agents, Klansmen. The book is intricately and imaginatively plotted (admittedly most of the imagination lies in thinking of mean things to do to his characters), but the true joy is in the characters and writing style. Mr Ellroy gets across a tremendous amount of information in very few words, and in Big Pete Bondurant he has created a monster. I'd like to shake the hand of the sick, twisted individual that could write this.
Rating: 
Summary: I guess Ellroy is just not for me!
Review: This is the third Ellroy novel I have read (after The Black Dahlia and LA Confidential). I found all three books remarkably similar. LA Confidential has almost the same structure: three morally compromised protagonists who are essentially swamped in a sea of corruption. I don't know whom Ellroy is writing for. As hard-boiled genre crime novels, they lack the simple pleasures associated with such works. The mannered machine-gun prose, the universally unsympathetic characters, and the extremely complicated plotting negate an enjoyable light reading experience. On the other hand, if he is attempting to write serious literature, I believe that at least a little believability would help. How does Littell know how to be such an incredibly skillful burglar? What does Laura see in a smarmy guy like Boyd? And Bondurant is a preternaturally competent psychopath. He handles himself with the skill of an old Clint Eastwood character. As literature, I must complain that the world is a complex interweaving of good and bad, idealism and corruption, selfishness and altruism. To present the entire world as corrupt, dirty, violent, and repellent becomes tiresome after a few hundred pages. I don't think that I'll try another Ellroy; give me, say, DeLillo's Underworld for a bleak vision that has the ring of truth.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant ! A must - read for everyone
Review: This book is really one of the most exciting and interesting I have ever read. Ellroy is better than ever (and he is my favorite writer). His "Kennedy-CIA-FBI- Mob" theory is very interesting and - hell- it may even be true... it sure sounds plausible
Rating: 
Summary: Hey, hey, JFK...
Review: It seems that Ellroy is coming a little bit down from the masterful L.A. books. This is not to say that American Tabloid is a bad book: it certainly isn't, but Ellroy's habit of repeating himself comes very clear with this book. I think I have met these characters before. Still: finely written, interesting, historically believable, impossible to put down. Ellroy never fails.
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Summary: Glad to be here
Review: I'm happy i took others advice and got this book. Its captivating and concise. Take your time reading it, and enjoy a little bit at a time. The world he creates is full of life and complexities.
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Summary: The best book I've ever read
Review: I read tons, more then anybody I know, and of all the books I've read this one's the best. While I also love Stephen King and Elmore Leonard, American Tabloid beats all the competition. A wonderful read that's hard to keep up with but well worth the time.
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