History Creator / JamesEllroy

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

His most famous series is the ''L.A. Quartet,'' a collection of four hardboiled detective novels set in Los Angeles during the post-war years. These four books -- ''Film/TheBlackDahlia'', ''Literature/TheBigNowhere'', ''Literature/LAConfidential'', and ''Literature/WhiteJazz'' -- defined noir in the minds of many modern readers, and became kind of the canonical take on the Golden Age of Hollywood. In them, Ellroy looked to expose the dark underbelly of the glittering LA facade, telling stories of elaborate, often sickening conspiracies that swallowed whole the lives of innocent men and women. The books occupy a shared continuity, with many characters appearing in multiple novels, but they're also standalone stories that don't require knowledge of the previous books to understand.

Ellroy followed the Quartet with the Underworld USA series -- ''Literature/AmericanTabloid,'' ''Literature/TheColdSixThousand and ''Literature/BloodsARover.'' It was as cynical and conspiratorial as the Quartet, but it played out on a grander geopolitical stage, weaving in high-level American politics and international diplomacy from the years 1960 to 1973.

He's currently at work on The Second LA Quartet, which returns to the classic Los Angeles setting while rewinding the clock to the World War 2 years. The first two books, ''Literature/{{Perfidia}}'' and ''Literature/ThisStorm'', are linked below.

Ellroy followed the Quartet with The Underworld USA series -- ''Literature/AmericanTabloid,'' ''Literature/TheColdSixThousand and ''Literature/BloodsARover.'' It was as cynical and conspiratorial as the Quartet, but it played out on a grander geopolitical stage, weaving in high-level American politics and international diplomacy from the years 1960 to 1973.

His books include lots of BlackAndGrayMorality and DeliberateValuesDissonance, as well as LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. Particularly well-known is his "L.A. Quartet" - ''Film/TheBlackDahlia'', ''Literature/TheBigNowhere'', ''Literature/LAConfidential'', and ''Literature/WhiteJazz''.

Ellroy's novels are, invariably, brutal and violent, suffused with a jaundiced, cynical, world-weary tone. Their protagonists - almost always, though not exclusively, men - are usually desperate scrabblers and {{Anti Hero}}es at best. Ellroy's narratives feature intricate, dense plots that require flow charts and extensive notes to keep track of.

* ''Literature/BloodsARover''

Ellroy's novels are, invariably, brutal and violent, suffused with a jaundiced, cynical, world-weary tone. Their protagonists - almost always, though not exclusively, men - are usually desperate scrabblers and {{Anti Hero}}es at best. His books usually feature intricate, dense plots that require flow charts and extensive notes to keep track of.

* ''Literature/BloodsARover

* ''Literature/TheColdSixThousand''

* GenreShift: [[spoiler:''Blood's a Rover'']] ends up in some very strange places for a book that starts out as a hard boiled detective novel.

* ''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''.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: The VillainProtagonists and AntiHeroes who populate Ellroy's novels tend to have lines they insist they won't cross - Dudley Smith insists that his facist allies not kill any Americans or conduct any sabotage on American soil in Literature/ThisStorm, for example, while Pete Bondurant won't allow his business associates to sell dope to the Marines serving in Vietnam (he also won't hurt women). Usually they end up crossing these lines by the end of their novels.

His books include lots of BlackAndGreyMorality and DeliberateValuesDissonance, as well as LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters. Particularly well-known is his "L.A. Quartet" - ''Film/TheBlackDahlia'', ''Literature/TheBigNowhere'', ''Literature/LAConfidential'', and ''Literature/WhiteJazz''.

** In ''{{Literature/The Big Nowhere}}'' Meeks, Smith and other ostensibly far more badass characters give Mal Considine a wider berth than his otherwise unassuming demeanor would seem to require because during his stint as an Army officer in Europe, when he witnessed the inside of a concentration camp first-hand, he walked into a room where the camp's commander was held and unloaded his sidearm into the latter's face.

** In ''TheBigNowhere'' Meeks, Smith and other ostensibly far more badass characters give Mal Considine a wider berth than his otherwise unassuming demeanor would seem to require because during his stint as an Army officer in Europe, when he witnessed the inside of a concentration camp first-hand, he walked into a room where the camp's commander was held and unloaded his sidearm into the latter's face.

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'', ''Literature/TheBigNowhere'', ''Literature/LAConfidential'', and ''Literature/WhiteJazz''.

* {{The Atoner}}: Wayne Tedrow Jr [[spoiler: and Dwight Holly, after his nervous breakdown]].
* {{Author Appeal}}:

* {{Ax Crazy}}: Most of the characters to some extent, but Jean-Philippe and his Cuban mercs stand out.

* {{Beware The Nice Ones}}: [[spoiler: Don Crutchfield and Karen Sifakis.]]

* {{Crapsack World}}: Notable as his books, from ''The Black Dahlia'' on, are intended to tell the secret history of 20th century America
* {{Creator Breakdown}}: As noted above Ellroy's mother was murdered when he was young. As well as providing impetus and material for ''The Black Dahlia'' Ellroy wrote an autobiographical account of the effect it had on him in ''My Dark Places''. He actually tried to investigate the case himself in the mid-'90s, before realizing that there was little point to it as most of the people involved were dead.

* {{Fate Worse Than Death}}: The methods by which many of the characters are killed (although they do end up dead... eventually).
* {{Genre Shift}}: [[spoiler:''Blood's a Rover'']] ends up in some very strange places for a book that starts out as a hard boiled detective novel.

* {{Kill Em All}}: There's pretty much no one left standing by the end of [[spoiler: ''Blood's a Rover'']].

* {{No Good Deed Goes Unpunished}}: This happens a lot. For example, in ''The Cold Six Thousand'' Wayne Tedrow Jr is trying to get away from the shadow of his father - a racist who has made a fortune publishing hate literature. He is dispatched to kill an unarmed black man, who has offended the wrong people in Vegas, for the titular amount of money. He cannot bring himself to do it. The man he was sent to kill [[spoiler: ends up raping and murdering Wayne's wife]]. A similar thing happens in ''Bloods a Rover'' where Wayne goes to warn a black man that he is to be framed for a murder Wayne committed and [[spoiler: he ends up having to kill him and an innocent bystander after the guy attacks him. He goes on to steal from the Mob and uses the proceeds to fund leftist causes in the Dominican Republic after seeing how minorities are treated there. He is randomly murdered while walking among the people he is trying to help. Dwight Holly is murdered by Scotty Bennett when he tries to prevent Bennett from killing Crutch.]]

* {{Shoot the Shaggy Dog}}: [[spoiler: ''Blood's a Rover'']] comes very close to this. As one of the (very few) surviving characters notes towards the end of the book, having gone through hell and finally uncovered the conspiracy: "He had [the] story now. Facts clicked into place, redundant. Who gives a shit?"

* TookALevelInBadass: [[spoiler: Don Crutchfield]] overcomes voodoo drug induced paralysis through sheer force of will, bites the head off a live rat just to prove he can and kills the two guys who did this to him and were about to murder him. He later kills [[spoiler: Jean-Philippe and the mercs]] with a flamethrower and is responsible for the death of [[spoiler: J. Edgar Hoover]] and the destruction of his blackmail files. He is the only main character to survive the book and at the end it is revealed that, following the events of the novel, he became a Hollywood power broker. This character is the {{chew toy}} for much of the story and his mob nickname is Dipshit.

* {{Villain With Good Publicity}}: Notably [[spoiler: Dudley Smith]], although most of Ellroy's cop protagonists are this to some extent.
* {{Who Shot JFK}}: Also Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. In ''American Tabloid'' and ''The Cold Six Thousand''.

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