The dark side of the American Dream.
The LA Quartet is a sequence of four crime novels by James Ellroy, and quite possibly his most well-known work. Set in the 1940s and 1950s, the series tracks various LAPD officers as they navigate both the corrupt department they work in and the seedy Los Angeles underworld. The books can be read as stand-alones, but share multiple characters and plot threads.
The series consists of four books:
In addition, Ellroy began a second LA Quartet in 2014, intended to bridge the gap between The LA Quartet and his later Underworld USA series. Set during World War Two, the series so far consists of:
The novel Clandestine - published prior to the series - also features several characters from the Quartet. A short story, "Since I Don't Have You", features recurring character Buzz Meeks but is set in an Alternate Continuity.
Tropes applying to this series include:
- Affably Evil:
- Dudley Smith is a pleasant, charming, back-slapping LAPD detective with a kind word for everyone. He's also a Corrupt Cop and Manipulative Bastard engaged in an epic, decades-long struggle to seize control of the organized crime in Los Angeles. He's also very committed to his affability - he doesn't drop the wide smile and polite demeanor even when he's murdering folks.
- Mickey Cohen is a Noble Demon who is a lot better than the majority of the Dirty Cop types that permeate the books. He has a soft spot for women as well as being a man of his word.
- Anti-Hero: Pretty much all of the protagonists are at best amoral scumbags, but they're generally leagues better than the people they're up against.
- Anyone Can Die: Oh yes. Pretty much any character, no matter how major they are, can be killed off at any moment.
- Armored Closet Gay: Danny Upshaw and Ellis Loew, which is eventually used as blackmail material by their enemies.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: The heroes are often barely any better than the people they fight and when they are, it is because the villains are pure evil.
- Big Bad: Dudley Smith is actually responsible for a large chunk of everything wrong with LA being responsible for the Sleepy Lagoon murders and subsequent Zoot Suit Riot. He is also behind the death of Danny Upshaw in The Big Nowhere and later the criminal activity in LA Confidential and White Jazz.
- The Chessmaster: Dudley Smith is a man with his fingers in multiple pies ranging from organized crime to politics and is effectively untouchable in the LAPD. It takes Exeley years to take him down.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Even the more likable characters hurl around racial slurs like there's no tomorrow, and express similar views about Jewish people.
- Dirty Cop: Plenty of examples, but the stand-out is almost certainly Dudley Smith.
- Dysfunction Junction: Nearly everyone in the series is some shade of dysfunctional. Even the nicest people on the right side of the law tend to be massively fucked up in some regard.
- Femme Fatale: There's a huge number of them with Madelaine Sprague and Claire De Haven being the most prominent.
- Film Noir: The LA Quartet attempts to invoke this feeling in book form and actually had a couple of movies adapted to Neo-Noir format.
- Historical Domain Character: Mickey Cohen, Johnny Stompanato, and Elizabeth Short are all historical figures used in the books.
- Horrible Hollywood: The motion picture industry is shown to be corrupt, prone to sexual abuse, and above the law.
- Nice Guy: Russ Millard and Mal Considine. This being James Ellroy, they both die.
- Only Sane Man: Russ Millard is pretty much the only cop in the LAPD who isn't unstable, corrupt, or any combination of the two.
- Police Brutality: Even police officers who aren't corrupt tend to inflict unjustified beatings on suspects or witnesses. Even the protagonists are often quite willing to engage in this.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Due to the period accurate bigotry, even sympathetic characters often express views that are horrifically racist, xenophobic, or homophobic.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: While the protagonists tend to be prejudiced in their own way due to the series being set in the deeply bigoted 1950s, oftentimes the villains are far more bigoted than they are.
- Recurring Element: Dudley Smith, Buzz Meeks, and Ellis Loew appear in almost every book. Most of the novels also feature a mysterious, Ax-Crazy murderer of an upper-class background and a heavy focus on governmental corruption.
- Red Scare: The communist menace in Los Angeles during the 1940s is shown to exist in the context that there are Leftist elements in the unions and society that are corrupt. However, the people persecuting them are just as bad if not worse as well as using it for their own political purposes.
- Sunshine Noir: The LA Quartet is a sleazy, dark, and corrupt version of Los Angeles in the 1940s with much of the violence taking place in broad daylight.
- Stock Unsolved Mysteries: The Black Dahlia and Sleepy Lagoon murders are the focuses of the first two books.
- Villain Protagonist: Many of the protagonists are downright evil, including Buzz Meeks, Dave Klein, Hideo Ashida after his Face–Heel Turn, and Dudley Smith in the prequels.
