Ellroy Reads – Heed the Thunder by Jim Thompson
Jim Thompson is now considered one of the greatest American crime writers, but his work wasn’t fully appreciated in his lifetime. By the time of his death in 1977, all of his work was out of print in the United States. Then in the early nineties, critical and commercial interest in Thompson’s novels was revived, helped along by several excellent film adaptations. James Ellroy played a small role in this Thompson revival, which I go into in the latest episode of Ellroy Reads which covers Thompson’s second novel Heed the Thunder, one of the few Thompson novels that doesn’t fall squarely into the noir genre.
I hope you enjoy the episode and please remember to like, share and subscribe to the channel as it helps the algorithm and my long-term plans to break the internet!
Where the Bones Lie by Nick Kolakowski – Review
Dash McClane has hit rock bottom. His glory days as a Hollywood fixer are over. His new gig as a stand-up comic is going nowhere and a beautiful young woman is about to get him into a whole lot of trouble. Ken Ironwood is a smuggler who rubbed shoulders with LA celebrities in his pomp. But when Ironwood is found dead, his remains stuffed inside a barrel in a dry lake bed, it threatens to unleash some dangerous secrets. Working under the ropey assumption that McClane is a private detective, Ironwood’s daughter Madeline hires Dash to find some answers.
Nick Kolakowski is a noir voice for the 21st century. He understands Southern California, from it’s warped celebrity-obsessed culture to the sardonic fatalism of its people who once nurtured dreams of fame and fortune but are now just looking to make a buck, and is able to render it compellingly in his fiction. Where the Bones Lie is a darkly comic new take on the private detective/fixer novel in the vein of Jordan Harper’s modern classic Everybody Knows. I was touched by how the relationship deepened between McClane and Madeline and found myself bracing for the inevitable showdown as they drew nearer to Ironwood’s killer.
The Dream by Iain Ryan – Review
Australia, Gold Coast, 1982. Brisbane is hosting the Commonwealth Games. The tourist economy is booming. The country is an emerging economic powerhouse, but in the backdrop of this sunny paradise a criminal underworld is thriving. The lives of three people will intertwine in this treacherous climate. Bruno Karras is a jaded detective whose fading interest in police work is suddenly jolted back to life when he is sent anonymous photos of a blood-stained house. Thus begins a mystery that will see Karras cross paths with Amy Owens, an investigator flying too close to the sun, and Mike Nichols, a backroom player whose dreams of the big time are likely to turn sour.
This is the world of The Dream. Noir in an Antipodean setting.
Iain Ryan is one of the most gifted writers in the contemporary Australian crime fiction scene. He paints a vivid portrait of the eighties Gold Coast as similar to James Ellroy’s LA Quartet, in that economic boom times create a veneer of middle-class expansion but are masking a sordid culture of graft, sleaze and constant betrayal. Karras, Owens and Nichols learn to navigate this world of perfidy and vice. Their journey makes for compelling reading. The Dream is one of the must-read crime novels of 2025.
Ellroy Reads – Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
Ellroy Reads returns with a look at Philip Roth’s hilariously grotesque Portnoy’s Complaint. This is a gleefully polemical novel which examines every conceivable aspect of sexual obsession. It comes as no surprise then, that it was highly influential to James Ellroy. Although he is both gentile and Christian, the young Ellroy could be read as a living, breathing embodiment of the Alexander Portnoy of the novel.
I also go into some detail as to controversies surrounding Blake Bailey’s biography of Philip Roth and how it affected Ellroy and my writing of Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy.
You can watch the episode below. If you enjoy it, hit the like button. If you love it, then subscribe.
The Art of P. D. James
Editor’s Note: Today, I am happy to welcome to the blog the author and academic Sarah Burton. Sarah has contributed an excellent guest post on ‘The Art of P.D. James’:
Conveying information to the reader in crime fiction can seem relatively easy. Those investigating the crime have every reason to ask witnesses and suspects pertinent questions; better still, investigators have every reason to discuss the case between them, and turn over various theories – all in full view of the reader. By contrast, in literary fiction a writer can spend an afternoon trying to find a way of conveying a small piece of information to the reader in a way that feels subtle and believable.
That’s not to say, of course, that the crime writer can’t make use of this method too. By the end of the first chapter of P. D. James’s first novel, Cover Her Face (1962), we have a pretty strong sense of the principal location – a country house called Martingale – and this has been achieved by the ‘subtle and believable’ method. These impressions of the house have been gleaned from details picked up incidentally, such as it being the sort of house where dinner parties are often held, at which chicken soufflé, served by a house-parlourmaid, is on the menu; the sort of house that has a drive, and used to have stables, and where weekend guests are not unusual. We pretty much know where we are, and two more chapters pass without us really feeling the absence of an overview of the place.
Then the police arrive.
‘Nice-looking place, sir,’ said Detective-Sergeant Martin as the police car drew up in front of Martingale. ‘Bit of a change from our last job.’ […]
Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgleish did not reply but swung himself out of the car and stood back for a moment to look at the house. It was a typical Elizabethan manor house, simple but strongly formalized in design. The large, two-storeyed bays with their mullioned and transomed windows stood symmetrically on each side of the square central porch…
And so the description continues, until readers could pretty much draw a sketch of Martingale.
By having the reader see the house through Dalgleish’s eyes, James has solved two problems: (a) we now see the house in a way that the viewpoint of any of the characters familiar with the house could not legitimately or believably have provided – they all know the building too well to see what Dalgleish, seeing it for the first time, would naturally notice; (b) we now re-enter the world of the story attached to Dalgleish’s perspective.
Dalgleish and Martin meet the local superintendent in the hall of the house.
Two reporters were sitting just inside the door with the air of dogs who have been promised a bone if they behave and who have resigned themselves to patience. The house was very quiet and smelt faintly of roses.
The reader is now certain that these are Dalgleish’s impressions, not those of a disembodied narrator. (And the presence of the two reporters in the hall is another subtle indicator of the scale of the house – how many of us could accommodate two journalists hanging about in our front hall?) We are with him as he follows the superintendent up ‘the vast square staircase’. Although there is no description of the hall and the corridors as they pass through them, James remedies this when they enter the victim’s bedroom:
The bedroom was white-walled and full of light. After the dimness of the hall and corridors bounded with oak linen-fold panelling, this room struck with the artificial brightness of a stage.
Not only do we get the effect of bursting into the brightness of the room, but where we’ve just been has now been plausibly evoked. Both locations are made remarkable – and so legitimately describable – by contrast.
The account of the dead girl’s room that follows is naturally rich in detail: Dalgleish’s is the kind of mind that hoovers up all particulars, knowing that he can’t yet tell which might or might not be relevant.
So James uses a number of different strategies to help the reader see where we are: some of the time we are almost unconsciously absorbing information about our surroundings as the story moves forward; some of the time Dalgliesh’s consciousness is directing our attention. In both cases James is firmly in control – at no point does anything come from nowhere.
She uses the same technique when delivering backstory; we don’t get told simply that Dalgleish has been in the job at this level for seven years – the information arrives obliquely, as he is considering the victim’s body:
He stood very still looking down at her. He was never conscious of pity at moments like this and not even of anger, although that might come later and would have to be resisted. He liked to fix the sight of the murdered body firmly in his mind. This had been a habit since his first big case seven years ago when he had looked down at the battered corpse of a Soho prostitute in silent resolution and had thought, ‘This is it. This is my job.’
P. D. James has a habit – fairly common now but less so at the time she was first writing – of changing the centre of consciousness of the narration – allowing the reader into the minds of various characters, and to see events as they see them. Leading up to the chapter containing this information about Dalgleish’s career history we have had sections told in the exclusive third person of each of the five main suspects, as well as Dalgleish. The convention James has established means we are only going to get a description of Dalgliesh through one of these viewpoints. In fact, they all see him for the first time at the same time, enabling James to cycle through all these viewpoints:
The door opened and three plain-clothes policemen came in. Superintendent Manning they already knew. Briefly he introduced his companions as Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgleish and Detective-Sergeant George Martin. Five pairs of eyes swung simultaneously to the taller stranger in fear, appraisal or frank curiosity.
Catherine Bowers thought, ‘Tall, dark and handsome. Not what I expected. Quite an interesting face really.’
Stephen Maxie thought, ‘Supercilious-looking devil. He’s taken his time coming. I suppose his idea is to soften us up. Or else he’s been snooping round the house. This is the end of privacy.’
Felix Hearne thought, ‘Well, here it comes. Adam Dalgleish, I’ve heard of him. Ruthless, unorthodox, working always against time. I suppose he has his own private compulsions. At least they’ve though us adversaries worthy of the best.’
Eleanor Maxie thought, ‘Where have I seen that head before? Of course. That Dürer. In Munich was it? Portrait of an Unknown Man. Why does one always expect police officers to wear bowlers and raincoats?’
It’s an unusual strategy, but a hard-working one, these impressions being designed as much to give the reader insight into Catherine, Stephen, Felix and Eleanor as to give us a sense of Dalgleish’s appearance. They are followed by a fifth, much odder impression:
Through the exchange of introductions and courtesies Deborah Riscoe stared at him as if she saw him through a web of red-gold hair.
When he spoke it was in a curiously deep voice, relaxed and unemphatic.
The reader pauses only momentarily over these observations and is soon drawn back into the sweep of the narrative. It is only at the very end of the book, as Dalgleish takes leave of Deborah, that we begin to understand the palpable chemistry between the two:
As he turned his head and saw the lonely figure, outlined momentarily against the light from the hall, he knew with sudden and heart-lifting certainty that they would meet again.
In no hurry to provide the reader with critical information about Dalgleish’s past in this first novel, James waits until the right moment presents itself. This arrives when he is interviewing Eleanor Maxie about the murder of her parlourmaid, Sally Jupp; Sally, an unmarried mother, had announced her engagement to Eleanor’s son hours before her death and Dalgleish is trying to establish how Eleanor felt about the proposed marriage. Eleanor enumerates her reasons, concluding: ‘Of course I disapproved of this so-called engagement.’ She then asks Dalgleish what she doubtless considers to be a rhetorical question: ‘Would you wish for such a marriage for your son?’
For one unbelievable second Dalgleish thought that she knew. It was a commonplace, almost banal argument, which any mother faced with her circumstances might casually have used. She could not possibly have realized its force. He wondered what she would say if he replied, ‘I have no son. My only child and his mother died three hours after he was born. I have no son to marry anyone – suitable or unsuitable.’ He could imagine her frown of well-bred distaste that he should embarrass her at such a time with a private grief at once so old, so intimate, so unrelated to the matter at hand.
As the co-writer of a crime fiction series myself I am well acquainted with the challenge of balancing the needs of the reader who already knows some of the characters from earlier novels and the reader who is meeting these characters for the first time. So I was interested to see how James handled the appearance of both Dalgliesh and Detective-Sergeant George Martin in her second novel, A Mind to Murder (1963). There is no character at the psychiatric clinic where this crime is set who could know enough about either of them for a description to come from their centre of consciousness. So she creates points from which their behaviour might theoretically or historically be witnessed.
Dalgleish and Martin made their last round of the premises together. Watching them at work a casual observer might have been misled into the facile observation that Martin was merely a foil for the younger, more successful man. Those at the Yard who knew them both judged them differently. In appearance they were certainly unalike. Martin was a big man, nearly six feet and broad-shouldered and looking, with his open ruddy face, more like a successful farmer than a detective. Dalgleish was even taller, dark, lean and easy moving. Beside him Martin seemed ponderous. No one watching Dalgleish could fail to recognise his intelligence. With Martin one was less sure.
This is what she does: always resisting the blunt instrument of a single narrative voice that describes everything, she insists all detail could be observed and interpreted by someone (whether it’s ‘a casual observer’, ‘those at the Yard who knew them both’, someone ‘watching’ or the universal individual ‘one’) – again, nothing comes from nowhere; characters are not just described, they are – somehow or other – known.
Even landscape doesn’t exist independently of the story and the characters. Her third book, Unnatural Causes (1967), is situated on the Suffolk coast. Towards the end of the novel a terrific storm is the setting for a thrilling climax ending in death and destruction, Dalgleish being injured but having solved the crime. He wakes up the next morning, aching all over after the exertions of the night before and with his hands bandaged.
He wriggled his arms into his dressing gown and walked across to the window. Outside the morning was calm and bright, bringing an immediate memory of the first day of his holiday. For a moment the fury of the night seemed as remote and legendary as any of the great storms of the past. But the evidence was before him. The tip of the headland visible from his eastward window was ravaged and raw as if an army had clumped across it littering its way with torn boughs and uprooted gorse. And, although the wind had died to a breeze so that the litter of the headland scarcely stirred, the sea was still turbulent, slopping in great sluggish waves to the horizon as if weighted with sand. It was the colour of mud, too turbid and violent to reflect the blue translucence of the sky. Nature was at odds with itself, the sea in the last throes of a private war, the land lying exhausted under a benign sky.
We see this landscape so clearly we feel we are standing at the window with Dalgleish.
My aim in looking carefully at these first three novels in the Dalgleish series was to try to understand what has led to the widespread veneration of P. D. James as an outstanding writer of crime fiction. The appeal of Dalgleish himself is not obvious – quiet and private, his inner life is suggested by the fact that he is also a poet. His methods are not outlandish or remarkable in any way. James confessed to having deliberately killed off his wife and child so that his private life wouldn’t be complicated – an interesting decision when we consider the complexity of many modern fictional detectives’ personal lives – and indeed she doesn’t allow him to be pinned down by a relationship until he marries Emma Lavenham at the end of The Private Patient (2008), the fourteenth and final book in the Adam Dalgleish series.
And like Dalgleish, James plays by the rules; her style isn’t showy and her novels don’t radically rewrite the rule book for crime fiction – in fact some critics find her stories disappointingly traditional. Personally I am not a fan of the characteristic long explanation at the end – in Unnatural Causes in particular the fact that the murderer has recorded a confession detailing every aspect of her crimes seems not only extraordinarily convenient but extremely risky on her part. While this lengthy unravelling is an accepted feature of Golden Age crime fiction I somehow expected more of James. And as a creative writing teacher I would always caution students against introducing readers to a large cast of characters very early on; James expects the reader to take in nine characters on page one of Cover Her Face, and while she slows down a little (twelve characters in the first six pages of the second novel and reducing the number of characters altogether in the third) I still had to revert to the method I haven’t used since attempting to tackle the Russian classics – keeping a list.
So what it is in her writing that raises her – in the opinion of both critics and readers – above so many of her fellow crime writers? I think it is the way she allows, as we have seen, characters to emerge from the text, through their perceptions and the perceptions of those around them, that gives the impression that we are getting to know them, rather than being told who they are. Like most effective literary strategies, we’re not particularly aware, as readers, of how this is being achieved – it’s a subtle and beguiling seduction. And it’s this skill that has made me wonder whether it’s not necessarily the case that P. D. James was simply an outstanding crime writer, but rather that she was an outstanding writer who happened – luckily for us – to specialise in crime fiction.
Author Bio: Sarah Burton’s most recent books were co-authored with Jem Poster. Their handbook for writers, The Book You Need to Read to Write the Book You Want to Write is published by Cambridge University Press. Eliza Mace, the first in a historical crime fiction series, published by Duckworth, is out in paperback February 27.
Ellroy Reads – Burr by Gore Vidal
Over the last decade or so there has been a resurgence of interest in the life and work of Alexander Hamilton. From the smash-hit musical to increasing academic attention to his role as one of the Founding Fathers, we seem to be in the grip of Hamiltonmania.
Therefore, I thought it was the perfect time for a close examination of Gore Vidal’s historical novel Burr, about the man who shot and killed Hamilton in a duel – Aaron Burr. Burr has traditionally been portrayed as a scoundrel and an adventurer, but Vidal turns this portrayal on its head and presents Burr as a reasonably honourable man surrounded by venal fools all looking to enrich themselves in the chaotic years of the Revolutionary War and the scramble for power afterward. Hamilton is portrayed as a knave, but Vidal reserves his full venom for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Reading this novel will change your perception of the American Revolution. Needless to say, it was a major influence on James Ellroy’s approach to historical fiction.
Find out more in the video below and do remember to subscribe to Ellroy Reads.
While visiting New York for the Edgar Awards ceremony in May of last year, my wife and I made time for a pilgrimage to Hamilton Grange National Memorial – Alexander Hamilton’s house. It is remarkably well-preserved 18th century Federal-style building located in the heart of Harlem, and surrounded by modern towering apartment buildings. If you find yourself in New York, put aside some time for a visit.
Ellroy Reads – Dutch: A memoir of Ronald Reagan by Edmund Morris
The first episode of Ellroy Reads in 2025 looks at one of the strangest presidential biographies ever written. Edmund Morris had achieved widespread acclaim with The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. But on the back of this success, when he accepted the role of President Reagan’s authorised biographer, Morris suddenly found himself stumped as to what to write about the 40th President of the United States.
Despite unprecedented access to the White House and Reagan during his two terms as President, Morris felt that his subject was fundamentally unknowable. The book that finally emerged, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, caused uproar when it was published in 1999 due to Morris introducing fictional elements into the narrative, including a fictional version of himself.
Many of the reviews were scathing, but it found one ardent admirer in James Ellroy. Find out why in the episode below. It feels great to bring the show back with the new year. Thank you all for watching and, if you haven’t already, hit that subscribe button… by executive order!
Death Off Santa Catalina – Short Story
The book lulled me to sleep, and my dreams led me back to the book.
Natalie was struggling in the water, grasping at the starboard side to ‘the Splendour’. Some part of my semi-lucid state knew that it was my conscience tormenting me. Natalie was dragged underwater. I couldn’t bear to watch that again. I dived off the deck and into the water to save her, hook Natalie in my arms and climb us both back onboard. Then sail this blasted yacht away from Santa Catalina and back to Long Beach, taking Natalie away from Robert forever. I only managed to pull myself awake. Conscious again, the sight of my bedroom was barely more palatable. The sheets were soaked in sweat. Damp as a wet deck. My ribcage was red where the weight of guilt-ridden sleep had branded me. My throat was dry from the perspiration. I ran my fingers across the duvet beside me, half expecting to find my wife’s lithe figure beneath it. Then I groggily recalled that she had moved in with her divorce attorney. From separate beds to separate houses in three months. Instead, my hand ran across the metallic frame of my phone. I must have knocked out my AirPods as the booming voice of Robert emanated from the Audible app:
After the police boat took away Natalie’s corpse, I noticed the dinghy was floating free alongside the Splendour. I sighed and tied it back to the railings. As if the tragic and sudden death of my wife wasn’t bad enough, I had to contend with the everyday responsibilities of sailing. Then I started to weep. Grief creeps up on you in these ordinary moments.
My wife had a new lover to keep her warm at night. I had Robert’s self-serving autobiography, Death Off Santa Catalina, to keep me company. I paused it and staggered to the toilet. After my bladder relaxed I put my lips around the sink faucet and rehydrated. My phone was pinging with notifications. I walked back to it and read an update I’d been expecting for weeks. The LA Times was reporting that Robert had been taken in for questioning under police caution. Thirty years after Natalie’s death and he was a suspect again, based on new and as yet undisclosed evidence. My phone was also telling me it was 3:26 am. No chance of getting back to sleep tonight, besides I wanted to get a march on things. I threw on my work clothes and headed out to the Subaru. I was on the Freeway in ten minutes. Once again, I had Robert’s book for company. My friends told me I was obsessed with this book. “Why don’t you read the case files?” they asked in exasperation. “This’ll tell me if he’s guilty or not” I replied in earnest.
I’ve had my indiscretions, but that didn’t mean Natalie’s feelings for Christopher didn’t hurt. The fact that they had chemistry was indisputable, they were flirting before my eyes the night that she died. Whether it ever amounted to anything more than that I will never discover. Christopher is too much of a gentleman to brag, and I don’t want to know. I have forgiven Natalie as what’s done is done.
Natalie had been flirting openly on Robert’s yacht the Splendour that night with her latest co-star Christopher. He was younger and hotter, physically and career-wise, than Robert. They were tactile onscreen and off. Did she have any genuine feelings for him? It was one of the biggest mysteries of the entire affair. But Christopher felt that Robert had suffered enough and never commented on the events of that night other than in his official police statement. Perhaps he felt guilt or resented the way Natalie had used him for revenge on her straying husband.
Sirens blared behind me. Police lights in my rear-view. An LAPD Squad Car had been tailing me. The empty roads and my addiction to the audiobook, Robert’s oh so self-serving audiobook, had let me slip the car into ninety. I pulled over for the cop. Handed over my license and registration at his request and denied I had been drinking.
“You smell of alcohol.”
“That was from yesterday,” I replied truthfully.
“When did you last have a drink?”
“Just before bed” I answered as concisely as possible.
Finally he prised it out of me. I admitted that my last drink had been four hours ago. He didn’t buy the fact that I had been to bed since then was in any way a sobering factor. The next thing I knew he asked me to depart my car and I failed a breathalyser test. Then I was in the back of the police vehicle in handcuffs, under arrest for DUI.
The LA County Jail system is something I have got to know well over the years, although I didn’t recognise any of the staff working the graveyard shift. The booking officer rolled off a series of questions with a sort of bored officialdom that comes with cops who never rise above uniform rank.
“Profession?”
“Self-employed.”
“You run your own business?” he stared with incredulity at my sorry state.
“I’ve only got one client,” I shrugged.
“Do you have anything to say before we take you into custody?”
“This is all a big misunderstanding. Yesterday I was drunk, today I’m sober, and I only drifted above the limit because I was listening to the audiobook Death off Santa Catalina.”
“Hah, otherwise titled How I Murdered My Wife and Almost Got Away with It.”
The arresting officer took me to a cell. I tried my luck with Robert. Prisoners are like everyone else in LA. They always want to know the local celebrity gossip, and LA County was the Chateau Marmont of Jails. Over the years it had played host to a number of star names who possessed varying degrees of talent. Everyone from Charles Manson to OJ Simpson, James Ellroy and Hugh Grant.
“Where are you keeping him anyway?”
“Who?” he replied, nonplussed.
“You know.”
“He’s in Interrogation Room One spilling his guts out.”
He unlocked the door to my cell and swung it open. I was relieved to see I would be alone. Perfect for work.
“Say, how about something to read?”
“I’ll get you the yellow tub.”
I smiled. They still kept all of the paperbacks in a yellow tub they would pass from cell to cell.
“Don’t bother. I’m only interested in one – Death off Santa Catalina.”
He looked at me quizzically, “Do you want a signed copy?”
“Do you have it or not?”
“This isn’t a lending library. We have Celebrate Recovery literature from the local church, if you’re interested.”
Ugh, no thank you. I’d tried God and sobriety once, and it led me straight back to the Devil and a bottle.
“Come on, I was listening to the audiobook when you picked me up. Unless you’re prepared to give my phone back, I really need a copy.”
“Not a chance. Get in.” He pursed his lips before closing the cell door. I stood there inanimate, unsure as to where we had left things. Sure enough, within a few minutes I heard the keys jangling as they slid into the lock.
“You’re in luck,” he said, throwing a paperback book onto my bunk and slamming the door shut in a single motion. He hadn’t let me down. It was Death off Santa Catalina in all its revised, expanded and unexpurgated glory.
I sat down to study it. The next few hours flew by. Give a researcher a study full of books and a free day and he’ll get almost nothing done, but put him in a damp cell with a single tome and it sharpens his reading skills wonderfully.
I scanned and skim read the exposition until I got to the key passages:
I went to bed angry that night. Natalie said she’d join me later. A dull recurring thud interrupted my sleep. I woke up panicked, thinking it was a bedframe groaning under the weight of two lovers’ tryst. Natalie was not beside me. I heard footsteps. Was she returning to the marital bed after an assignation with Christopher?
“Enjoying it are you?”
I was so engrossed in the book that I hadn’t noticed the cell door had opened and the officer who had brought the book was checking up on me.
“It’s not a question of pleasure. I have to know.”
“Well, if you ask me, he’s innocent.”
“Your colleague back there might disagree with that,” I replied, thinking of the Booking officer’s smartass remark.
“Why would he kill her? Because she was having an affair with that other actor. That would never fly in court.” He shook his head. “No, those Hollywood types are always having affairs.”
“The prosecution would only need to prove that Robert killed her,” I replied delicately, making sure I wasn’t challenging his dominance. “Motive makes for a compelling argument, but it’s not essential for a conviction. Besides, I don’t think they were having an affair.”
“What” he said incredulously, desperate to school me the way I had him. “The way they were behaving that night.”
“Maybe Natalie just liked the attention.”
He slammed the cell door shut, convinced I was so stupid that the matter was beyond debating. I didn’t tell him my argument was based on reason and the law. Christopher had been interviewed by police officers. He could be subpoenaed and cross-examined under oath. He wasn’t going to risk a perjury conviction just to hide an adulterous relationship. Like Robert, he was a married man, and his playfulness with Natalie could best be described as ill-judged. What then had Robert heard that night which he had mistaken for an amorous encounter? I returned to the book for answers.
I crept out of my cabin and tiptoed on the deck, half expecting to follow an audible trail of sensuous moans and catch Natalie and Christopher in flagrante delicto. Years later, my therapist told me that I was in the grip on a cuck fantasy. Half fearing what I’d find, half desiring it to be true.
I slammed the book shut. Robert wrote with surprising candour. He didn’t dare hire a ghost-writer to compose these sections for him in case he let something slip. Natalie’s visage invaded my thoughts. Her brown eyes were so penetrating that it was almost hard to take in her beauty as you knew she was staring directly into your soul and I felt the urge to look away and deny her that privilege. Read on, I told myself, find out what happened, forget about how you feel about her. I reopened the book; found the passage I was at and reread a few sentences before leading up to the climax.
I was at the height of a violent sexual anticipation when I found her, and she had never been more beautiful. That creamy skin and penetrating eyes…
You fucker Robert, that’s how I described her.
…staring up and through me. The water had made her more pale than usual, I thought. Then I realised it was the discoloration of death. The sea had already claimed her. She was a beautiful corpse.
I raced through the next few pages. Robert’s mourning process was of no interest to me. The hypocrisy was sickening even by Hollywood standards. It was the last page to which I turned.
A few years later, when the allegations had ceased but my career could not be resurrected, I had an epiphany as to what had lured Natalie into the water that night. Remember, she was always terrified of water. Getting her onto the Splendour was hard work in itself. In fact, the first time she had betrayed me had been in water, during her love scene with Warren in that wretched film where they had been intimate off a riverbank (Splendour in the Grass). Yes, that doesn’t count I hear you say, to which I would reply that they were sleeping together off camera as well. My cuckolds’ horns felt a bit lighter with the knowledge that filming that scene had terrified her. Four crew members had waded into the river in case, Heaven forfend, she slipped and drowned in three feet of water. Now, on the night she betrayed me again with Christopher, the banging had been the dinghy which I had neglected to tie up and was bouncing against the hull. This had disturbed Natalie in the night, and she had wandered out half-drunk to tie it, lost her footing and fell into the water. She couldn’t swim but managed to doggy paddle a little. But in her panic, and wearing a nightgown that had become heavy with water, she was pulled under and drowned. How had I not noticed it when I tied up the dinghy the following morning?
The book ended here, and Robert wanted the reader to believe the mystery was solved. I tossed it on the bunk. My reading of it said that this was Robert’s confessional, but it wasn’t admissible.
Item: he tries to act magnanimous about Natalie and Christopher, claiming that he didn’t know or care anymore whether they had an affair. He may no longer care but he would have known. Christopher formally denied a sexual relationship in his police interview, a transcript of which would have become available to Robert through his defence attorney.
Fact: his last words on Natalie, on the very last page, reiterate her adultery with her former co-star Warren. Not so forgiving of him and proof as to how he remembered her, no tribute to her talent or testament to her beauty. Natalie had admitted the affair with Warren, so she was already an adulteress in Robert’s eyes by the time she got on the Splendour that night, regardless of whether her playfulness around Christopher was merely flirtation. Robert had been so obsessed with her betrayal that he named the Splendour after the film Natalie starred in with Warren and in which the affair took place.
Hypothesis: why doesn’t he mention Natalie screaming for help once she fell into the water? If his half-asleep hearing is attentive enough to hear the dinghy bouncing and Natalie walking barefoot to attend to it, then surely, he could hear her terrified screams. A coroner will tell you that drowning is the most painful way to die. Your internal organs explode one by one. People get vocal with that sort of pain. Why didn’t she climb on to the dinghy she had tried to tie up? The only answer would be that someone ignored her screams and prevented her from climbing onto the dinghy.
Falsification: there was a big hole in the domestic homicide theory. Natalie looked beautiful in death as even Robert conceded. Jealous husbands slice off breasts and blow holes in their wives faces. They eliminate a woman’s sexual expression so she cannot gift it to anyone else but them. I pictured Robert untying the dinghy and hoping the noise would disturb Natalie in the night. Knowing her to be a light sleeper, under the influence of alcohol, and panicky near water he could let the rest just work out for him. He could ignore her screams and use a barge pole to prevent her from boarding the dinghy. Pity the prosecutor who tried to sell that to twelve jurors. A judge might dismiss the charges or direct the jury to acquit. But the rage element was missing from my hypothesis. When your wife has been unfaithful you don’t plan your revenge as though you’re outlining a Perry Mason novel. You shout and scream and, if you’re an abuser, throw punches. Then it came to me. Earlier in the book, Robert had complained about the domestic chore of tying up the dinghy the following morning. He wasn’t really complaining, he was gloating. He said her corpse looked beautiful in the water. He was alluding to the first betrayal with Warren in the water, preserved forever on film. A humiliation in aspic. He had saved his rage for the page, and revealed his revenge on Natalie for all those who came looking.
I was confident that I had solved the mystery but not in the way Robert intended, or if he did, he never expected it would get him hauled before the LAPD again. The cell door opened, and a plain-clothes detective walked in. It was a woman I recognized.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “That traffic cop didn’t know who you were.”
“That’s alright.”
“We’ll get you discharged. What are you going to do now?”
“What time is it?”
“Coming up to nine” she checked her watch to make sure there was no mistake. “Yeah nine.”
“Then I’ll do what everyone else does at nine in the morning – start my working day.”
I got to my feet and handed her Death off Santa Catalina. “Is that why you’re holding him? Your new information is what he blabbed out in that book.”
“You’ll know soon enough” she replied, flicking through a few pages,
“Right, get me out of here.”
I walked out of the cell, and rather than bother with booking out, I headed straight down the corridor and into Interrogation Room One. Robert sat there, aging and exhausted. He looked like a ghost who was pleased to see me, as though I would take him back to the spirit world where none of these earthly things mattered. Two detectives sat opposite him and looked up to acknowledge my presence. I pulled up a chair and sat next to Robert.
“Firstly, my client is completely innocent of these reheated thirty-year-old charges,” I said, nodding towards Robert. “And more importantly, why has he been denied access to his attorney throughout the night?”
It was the book that brought me here. A confessional that’s not admissible. I squeezed Robert’s hand. The frail old ladykiller managed a weak smile.
“I’ll have you out of here in no time” I assured him.
The End
Highbrow Lowbrow: Nicolas Roeg Special
Happy new year, dear readers! To get the year off to a good start, why not sit back and listen to the latest episode of Highbrow Lowbrow.
In this episode we celebrate the life and work of legendary British director, Nicolas Roeg. My highbrow pick is Roeg’s 1983 film Eureka, based on the unsolved murder of Sir Harry Oakes. A notorious flop in its day, I argue that Eureka’s strange mix of arthouse film with Caribbean courtroom mystery makes for a heady brew. Dan’s choice is Castaway, based on another true story, Lucy Irvine and Gerald Kingsland’s year of living off-grid on the remote island of Tuin. Dan argues that the career-best performances of Amanda Donohue and Oliver Reed (as Irvine and Kingsland) make this a Nicolas Roeg film that is not to be missed.
You can listen to the full episode here.
Jimmy Carter’s Cameo Role in the Life of James Ellroy
Here’s a story about Jimmy Carter that James Ellroy likes to tell. It’s October of 1980. The Presidential election is in it’s closing stages. The incumbent President, Jimmy Carter, is fighting a tough battle against the charismatic Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. It’s of minimal importance to James Ellroy, who is working as a caddy at the Bel Air Country Club. Nonetheless, Ellroy has grand plans. His first novel, Brown’s Requiem, has been accepted for publication by Avon. Ellroy is convinced he has a grand literary career ahead of him. There’s only one problem. Ellroy has never learned how to type. Ellroy writes everything by hand and then hires a typist to put the manuscript into professional shape. Avon have requested a series of revisions and Ellroy is so broke that he cannot afford a typist to oversee them and get the manuscript back to the publisher.
Then one morning Ellroy happened to be caddying for two Carter staffers at the Bel Air, and overhears snippets of their conversation.
‘Oh shit’ one of the staffers says. ‘Who will tell the President?’
‘Pat Caddell’s gonna tell him tonight’ his colleague gloomily replied.
The election was being presented in the media as a dead heat, but the Carter staffers had access to private polling from the election guru Patrick Caddell that put Reagan well ahead. Realising that he had just stumbled across a red hot tip, Ellroy called round his friends and placed a series of bets on Reagan to win the election, ‘which I had no right to make as I didn’t have the dough to pay up if I lost.’ Sure enough, Reagan won the election convincingly and Ellroy won his bets, paid for a typist to make the revisions to his manuscript and the rest is history.
Good anecdote, isn’t it. Perhaps too good. I didn’t include this story in my Ellroy biography Love Me Fierce in Danger as frankly I wasn’t convinced. Ellroy enjoys telling the story to friends and at his bookstore appearances, but when I broached the subject with him he got sheepish and changed the subject. It’s seems odd that two Carter staffers would be golfing in the midst of a gruelling election campaign. How could Ellroy know with any certainty that the private polling they mentioned was any more reliable than the national polling? Ellroy may be a gambler when it comes to his career choices and his affairs with women, but when it comes to stumping up cash on a bet he’s a bit more priggish.
Without any evidence to back up the story, I had to cut it from my manuscript. That said, if you ever find yourself playing nine holes with any White House staffers, it might pay to do some sly earwigging.
RIP Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)
The Venetian Vase 