October 1962. Fred Otash is freewheeling around Los Angeles. Once a police officer, latterly ‘Private Eye to the Stars’, Otash finds himself back on the side of the Angels, if you can say that about law enforcement in Ellroy’s work, as he assigned with the LAPD on an investigation into communist influence in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Of course, in Ellroy’s fiction every action has multiple hidden motivations. The Kennedy brothers have ordered the red probe to distract attention away from their complicity in the premature death of Marilyn Monroe. Otash’s involvement in that sordid saga was the basis of Ellroy’s previous novel The Enchanters.
In Red Sheet, Otash finds himself typically overstretched. Richard Nixon’s ill-fated gubernatorial campaign is winding down and Otash is tasked to keep an eye on Tricky Dicky, whose nocturnal wanderings are making his lieutenants – Bob Haldemann and John Ehrlichman – nervous, particularly after he is seen visiting a woman on Halloween night who is shortly thereafter found murdered. On top of that, Otash suspects the death of the woman is tied to the murder of two communist informers, and he begins to unravel a web of intrigue that goes back to the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and the Cristero rebellion in Mexico.
This is the convoluted nature of Red Sheet. That I have barely scratched the surface of its labyrinthine narrative in the synopsis above, proves that for an author in his late seventies, Ellroy is not lacking in ambition and scope. Regardless, in recent years a weariness has kicked in when reading Ellroy as it feels that he has said it all before. Novels such as Perfidia and This Storm, part of the prequel Los Angeles Quartet that Ellroy abandoned in favour of his more recent Otash novels, hammered readers with the relentless telegraphic prose style that began to overwhelm characterisation and dialogue.
Any appraisal of a new Ellroy novel must address whether it is a return to form of his classic period (broadly from The Black Dahlia to The Cold Six Thousand) or is it more plodding down the path of idiosyncrasies that have made reading his recent work more of a challenging proposition. As Ellroy’s biographer and someone who has spent a lot of time with him, I can attest to Ellroy’s obsessiveness and the obsession he inspires in his readers. Don’t get me wrong, he can be kind and generous too, but readers and critics are not drawn to him for these qualities. From the writer whose mother was murdered when he was ten years old (the case is still unsolved), and whose father was Rita Hayworth’s business manager (he organised Hayworth’s wedding to Prince Aly Khan), we have come to expect a more visceral intensity in his writing, especially on his dual obsessions of Hollywood and politics and their intersection. The good news is that Red Sheet delivers the goods on that score. In terms of a gripping plot, a well-paced unfolding mystery and sheer page-turning entertainment, Ellroy is a master and it shows here. The novel’s key flaw is a lack of snappy dialogue. The prose is as jazzy as ever, but when characters converse Ellroy falls back into a mode of speechifying that stifles the overall atmosphere. Nevertheless, Red Sheet is an impressive and accomplished addition to the genre, and it’s always good to have Ellroy, through Fred Otash, wreak such havoc on American history.
This review has been cross-posted on Shots Magazine. You can also check out my video review of Red Sheet on YouTube show Ellroy Reads.
Red Sheet by James Ellroy – Review
The wait is over. James Ellroy’s latest novel Red Sheet is published in the United States on June 9th. Below you will find my review for Ellroy Reads. I’ll also be posting a written review soon.
Any new Ellroy novel is a publishing event, and it was tremendously exciting to get an ARC of Red Sheet to be able to review it for my show. Now I want to hear your opinion. I realise many of you won’t have read it yet, but I have kept my review spoiler-free and would love to hear your thoughts on some of Ellroy’s recent radical choices.
The Disenchanted by Budd Schulberg is one of a number of great Hollywood novels that inspired James Ellroy’s The Enchanters. Schulberg wrote the novel as a roman à clef of his own working relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald when they worked on the film Winter Carnival together. It is one of the most acid and bitingly satirical portraits of Hollywood in American literature.
Enjoy the episode, and do remember to subscribe to the channel. The show is growing all of the time, and I couldn’t do it without the support of you the viewers. Thanks.
For the latest episode of Ellroy Reads I talk about Robert Crais’s excellent private detective novel Stalking the Angel. The second novel in Crais’s Cole and Pike series, Stalking the Angel is proof of the enduring appeal of the private eye figure in the mystery genre. I also reveal why my inscribed copy of the novel is very special to me, and share some stories about James Ellroy and the fate of his original manuscripts over the years.
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For the latest episode of Ellroy Reads, I review the classic Hollywood memoir Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. Tab Hunter lived a fascinating life which sometimes reads like a James Ellroy novel – he was virtually outed by Confidential magazine and one of his finest roles was as the real-life murderer Donald Bashor.
Tab Hunter Confidential was co-written or ghost-written by Eddie Muller, and I talk a little about Muller’s longstanding professional partnership with Ellroy. Enjoy the episode and do remember to subscribe to the channel, like, comment and share the material.
The Final Days of Abbott Montrose by Sven Elvestad – Review
For as long as most of us can remember Scandinavian crime fiction has been huge. Many of us have devoured the works of Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson and Liza Marklund, to name but a few, with relish. Rather fewer genre fans, I suspect, have read the works of the Norwegian author Sven Elvestad, despite him being a foundational figure in the genre and one of the most popular writers of his era. But that might be about to change, due to a new English translation of one of his greatest novels brought into print by Kazabo publishing.
Originally published as Montrose, and written under the pseudonym Stein Riverton, The Final Days of Abbott Montrose features Elvestad’s signature character Asbjørn Krag, a Great Detective Elvestad envisioned to match Sherlock Holmes in terms of intuition and eccentricity. Krag will need all his wits to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Abbott Montrose. During a quiet May evening the police are called to the scene of Montrose Abbey after the sounds of shouting and violence alert onlookers. Krag, and his partner Sirius Keller, find a scene of chaos has replaced this traditional setting of religious order. There is broken furniture, a burnt carpet and the only sign of Abbott Montrose is a torn piece of his cassock. What follows is a mystery which is both gripping and witty. Has the Abbott been leading a secret secular life, or have his scholarly studies led him to uncover something dangerous? Only a detective as intellectual and indefatigable as Asbjørn Krag will find out.
The Final Days of Abbott Montrose is a wonderful mystery novel, and I hope this excellent translation by Kazabo publishing will introduce many readers to the writing of Sven Elvestad.
Hollywood Babylon is the theme of the latest episode of Ellroy Reads, as I discuss Nathanael West’s scathing Hollywood satire The Day of the Locust. I also reveal a heretofore untold story from James Ellroy’s own Hollywood career.
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Brown’s Requiem, reviewed for Ellroy Reads
For the latest episode of Ellroy Reads I go back right to the beginning of James Ellroy’s career and review his debut novel Brown’s Requiem. Ellroy’s first novel has been somewhat forgotten in light of his later literary achievements, but it remains an impressive debut and I reveal some stories about Ellroy’s life around the time he wrote the book.
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James Ellroy’s Red Sheet – US Tour Dates
James Ellroy’s website has a list of all forthcoming tour dates in the US for Red Sheet. The majority of readers of the Venetian Vase live in the US, so check it out and see if Ellroy is coming to a venue near you. More dates are expected soon, as is my review of Red Sheet.
Pound for Pound by FX Toole, reviewed for Ellroy Reads
For the latest episode of Ellroy Reads, I discuss FX Toole’s classic boxing novel Pound for Pound. FX Toole (pseudonym of Jerry Boyd) is one of the most enigmatic figures in modern literature. I talk a little about his life-story, at least what we can definitively say of it, and his career in boxing.
I also discuss Toole’s one meeting with James Ellroy,m which occurred just as Toole’s writing career was taking off, before it would be tragically cut short by Toole’s death from heart disease. Pound for Pound was published posthumously and is considered one of the greatest novels about boxing. Ellroy has a profound love of the sport and I share some boxing stories from his life.
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The Venetian Vase 