History Creator / JamesEllroy

** [[spoiler: RealityEnsues eventually when his conflicting loyalties eventually manage to piss off '''every single one''' of his employees and lead to Kemper getting killed at the end of the book.]]

** Ditto for ''L.A. Quartet'' really, but there at least every book featured a stone-cold psycho killer and [[VilainWithGoodPublicity Dudley]] [[BiggerBad Smith]] so the "heroes" looked halfway-decent by comparison.

* ''Literature/ThisStorm

He's also known for public appearances full of RefugeInAudacity, [[{{Troll}} trolling]], BrutalHonesty, [[UnreliableExpositor unreliable exposition]] and for maintaining a SmallNameBigEgo that makes other narcissists fume with envy. And while he seems to espouse right-wing beliefs, he seems to do so only "...to fuck with people.". Make of that as you will.[[note]] [[http://venetianvase.co.uk/2013/08/03/james-ellroy-tory-mystic/ In his more "serious" moments, though,]] he's described himself as a "Tory mystic" and has expressed admiration for UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan and vehement contempt for Bill Clinton.[[/note]]

* {{''Literature/Perfidia''}}

* ''Literature/Perfidia''

* ''Literature/Perfidia''

* ''Perfidia''

One of the quintessential {{Mad Artist}}s of the 20th century, James Ellroy was born in 1948, and had a troubled childhood due to his parents' highly dysfunctional relationship that ended in their divorce. The key event in his life happened when he was just ten years old, when his mother was raped and murdered. The crime was never solved and Ellroy went to live with his father, who died seven years later. From there he dropped out of school and became a homeless, drug-addicted thief. After spending some time in jail he began to turn his life around by quitting drugs and getting a job as a caddy. However, his true passion became writing. His mother's murder had left him with a fascination of violent crime, much of it centered around the similar murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, popularly known as the "Black Dahlia" case. One of his novels is a fictionalized account of the case to give Short a bit more closure than she received in real life, one of the biggest cases of {{Creator Breakdown}} in a career full of it.

* ''TheBigNowhere''

His books include lots of {{Black and Grey Morality}} and {{Deliberate Values Dissonance}}, as well as {{Loads And Loads Of Characters}}. Particularly well-known is his "L.A. Quartet" - ''Film/TheBlackDahlia'', ''The Big Nowhere'', ''Literature/LAConfidential'', and ''Literature/WhiteJazz''.

** In ''TheBigNowhere'' [[spoiler:Upshaw]] is hounded into killing himself with the threat of revealing his homosexuality.

* NiceGuy: Mal Considine in ''TheBigNowhere'' has his hang-ups and peculiarities but on the whole is probobably the most fundamentally decent of Ellroy's protagonists. [[spoiler: Not that it saves him from a bullet to the face but that's [[KillTheCutie James]] [[DownerEnding Ellroy]] for you.]]

* ''The Big Nowhere''

** In ''The Big Nowhere'' [[spoiler:Upshaw]] is hounded into killing himself with the threat of revealing his homosexuality.

* NiceGuy: Mal Considine in ''The Big Nowhere'' has his hang-ups and peculiarities but on the whole is probobably the most fundamentally decent of Ellroy's protagonists. [[spoiler: Not that it saves him from a bullet to the face but that's [[KillTheCutie James]] [[DownerEnding Ellroy]] for you.]]

** Ditto for ''L.A. Quartet'' really, but there at least every book featured a stone-cold psycho killer and [[MagnificentBastard Dudley]] [[BiggerBad Smith]] so the "heroes" looked halfway-decent by comparison.

* {{Author Appeal}}: Peeping.

-->''The essential contention of the Underworld USA trilogy ... is that America was never innocent. Here's the lineage: America was founded on a bedrock of racism, slaughter of the indigenous people, slavery, religious lunacy ... and nations are never innocent. Let alone nations as powerful as our beloved fatherland. What you have in ''The Cold Six Thousand'' — which covers the years '63 to '68 — is that last gasp of pre-public-accountability America where the [[RedScare anti-communist mandate]] justified [[TheGovernment virtually any action]]. And it wasn't [[WhoShotJFK Kennedy's death]] that engendered mass skepticism. It was the protracted horror of the [[VietnamWar Vietnamese war]].''

--->''The essential contention of the Underworld USA trilogy ... is that America was never innocent. Here's the lineage: America was founded on a bedrock of racism, slaughter of the indigenous people, slavery, religious lunacy... and nations are never innocent. Let alone nations as powerful as our beloved fatherland. What you have in ''The Cold Six Thousand'' -- which covers the years '63 to '68 -- is that last gasp of pre-public-accountability America where the [[RedScare anti-communist mandate]] justified [[TheGovernment virtually any action]]. And it wasn't [[WhoShotJFK Kennedy's death]] that engendered mass skepticism. It was the protracted horror of the [[UsefulNotes/VietnamWar Vietnamese war]].''

* {{Alliterative Name}}: He loves these. Wendell White, Ed Exley and Pierce Patchett in ''LA Confidential'', Bucky Bleichert in ''Black Dahlia''.
** Though Bucky's name is actually Dwight, and Wendell goes by Bud.

** LoveTriangles involving two cops and a hooker.

* {{Dirty Cop}}: It's fair to say that most of Ellroy's characters are either dirty cops or former dirty cops. [[spoiler:Dudley Smith]] from ''L.A. Confidential'' is just the one most people know. Edmund Exley was also ''far'' more compromised in the book than the film. The protagonist, Klein, is himself quite the DirtyCop, but the ultimate point is that his sins pale in comparison to either of theirs.

* {{Genre Shift}}: [[spoiler: ''Literature/WhiteJazz'']] and [[spoiler: ''Blood's a Rover'']] both end up in some very strange places for books that start out as hard boiled detective novels.

* UsefulNotes/ColdWar: The setting for most of the Underworld USA Trilogy, specifically the early 60s-70s. Plus, ''The Big Nowhere'' features a subplot about a cop inflitrating a Communist group.

* ''Literature/WhiteJaz''

!!Works by Ellroy

!!Tropes this Author is known for include:

!!Works by Ellroy
!!!Stand Alone Novels
Ellroy's first novels, written while caddying was still his full-time occupation. Accordingly golfing motifs appear quite frequently.
* ''Brown's Requiem''
* ''Clandestine''-Notable for introducing a lot of elements that would surface later on in the first L.A. Quartet. Also features the first non-canonical appearance of Dudley Smith. Almost reads as something of a prototype for the future first book in the L.A. Quartet ''The Black Dahlia''.
* ''Killer on the Road''
!!!Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy
Follows the exploits of a brilliant but unfaithful LAPD Sergeant named Lloyd Hopkins in 1980s Los Angeles.
* ''Blood on the Moon''
* ''Because the Night''
* ''Suicide Hill''
!!!L.A. Quartet
Perhaps the most famous collection of books by Ellroy, tied with the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy. Centers on the corruption and criminality of L.A. during it's golden age. Spans from 1947 to 1959.
* ''The Black Dahlia''
* ''The Big Nowhere''
* ''L.A. Confidential''
* ''White Jazz''
!!!Underworld U.S.A Trilogy
More or less follows directly on from the L.A. Quartet, at least chronologically speaking. Has a much grander theatrical scale to it though, dealing with espionage and the dirty dealings of the United States as a whole. Several characters briefly mentioned in the L.A. Quartet also reappear in a much more prominent role. Spans from 1958 to 1972.
* ''American Tabloid''
* ''The Cold Six Thousand''
* ''Blood's a Rover''
!!!Second L.A. Quartet
A prequel of sorts to the events of the first L.A. Quartet. The narrative focus shifts back down a gear from the grand stage set by the Underworld U.S.A Trilogy, once again focusing on L.A. However, a distinct difference lies in the fact that the novels all take place in wartime America. Many characters from the first Quartet make appearances as is to be expected. Spans from 1942 to presumably 1945.
* ''Perfidia''

* {{Dirty Cop}}: It's fair to say that most of Ellroy's characters are either dirty cops or former dirty cops.
* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: Kemper Boyd, who simultaneously works for the Kennedy brothers, J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA, ''and'' TheMafia.

* {{Badass}}: Pete Bondurant, the physically imposing (6 feet 4 inches and muscular 230 pounds), chain-smoking, laconic ex-Marine, ex-cop, licensed PI, extortionist extraordinaire and a freelance Mafia hitman [[spoiler: is arguably a rather vicious deconstruction of this trope. By the time of ''The Cold Six Thousand'' he is an emotional and physical wreck (he goes through a brain tumor and two heart attacks over the course of the story), wanting nothing more than to retire to a life of peace and quiet with his wife.]] Ellroy being Ellroy, [[spoiler: he actually [[EarnYourHappyEnding gets his wish]] but boy howdy, does he have to jump through the hoops for it.]]