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Clandestine
In James Ellroy's riveting second novel, an ambitious beat cop is hot on the trail of a serial killer who frequents L.A. dive bars and preys on the fallen women he finds there.Los Angeles, 1951. For Officer Fred Underhill, the job is all about the wonder, an elusive quality he finds while dealing with the city’s drunks, hopheads, gunsels, and burglars. When he’s not reveling in the glory of cleaning up the streets, he’s on the green or scoring women. But Underhill’s ambition and allegiance to the badge get the better of him when a grim opportunity to prove his worth arises. Catching a serial strangler who is snuffing out women would all but ensure his place at the top. As he climbs his way up, the hungry rookie wheels and deals with some of the force’s most unscrupulous officers, and when the case goes sideways and fast, the eyes of the very law he serves will be trained on him. Now Underhill’s only chance to redeem himself is to pick up the trail of the soulless killer and close the case himself.
429 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1982
438 people are currently reading
2734 people want to read
About the author
James Ellroy
137 books4,178 followersLee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 180 reviews
November 29, 2024
My first time reading James Ellroy, and my first time in years reading a noir in the tradition of Chandler or Hammett.
It’s got a labyrinthine plot, with violent and arresting images, of gothic Hollywood horror and terror, and a tale of good and evil and family.
The story centers around Detective Fred Underhill and of his search for justice of those who murdered a one stand of his- an emotionally needy woman named Maggie, who happens to be the mother of a boy named Michael he's grown attached to.
At first, Fred abuses his power towards Engels, a bisexual hustler who he suspects murdered Maggie. When Engels kills himself in jail, Fred is stripped of his badge and takes matters into his own hands to avenge Maggie, and to atone for Engels' death. Meanwhile, Fred is also dating Lorna, a disabled lawyer who is all for justice in solving Maggie's murder and Engels' suicide.
Maggie's murder and “clandestine” activities takes Fred to a small town in Wisconsin where Maggie and Michael are connected to a brother and sister named Johnny and Marcella- also murdered.
This winds up even more heartbreaking and mysterious than anything Fred could've uncovered.
A compelling, pulpy story- it captures 1950s Los Angeles in such a way that harks back to the classic films of that era, and a story of heartbreak that seems to connect Ellroy back to his own life experiences of trying to find out who murdered his own mother.
Film pairings: L.A Confidential (based on Ellroy's own novel); Chinatown, Farewell My Lovely, Harper, and The Big Sleep.
It’s got a labyrinthine plot, with violent and arresting images, of gothic Hollywood horror and terror, and a tale of good and evil and family.
The story centers around Detective Fred Underhill and of his search for justice of those who murdered a one stand of his- an emotionally needy woman named Maggie, who happens to be the mother of a boy named Michael he's grown attached to.
At first, Fred abuses his power towards Engels, a bisexual hustler who he suspects murdered Maggie. When Engels kills himself in jail, Fred is stripped of his badge and takes matters into his own hands to avenge Maggie, and to atone for Engels' death. Meanwhile, Fred is also dating Lorna, a disabled lawyer who is all for justice in solving Maggie's murder and Engels' suicide.
Maggie's murder and “clandestine” activities takes Fred to a small town in Wisconsin where Maggie and Michael are connected to a brother and sister named Johnny and Marcella- also murdered.
This winds up even more heartbreaking and mysterious than anything Fred could've uncovered.
A compelling, pulpy story- it captures 1950s Los Angeles in such a way that harks back to the classic films of that era, and a story of heartbreak that seems to connect Ellroy back to his own life experiences of trying to find out who murdered his own mother.
Film pairings: L.A Confidential (based on Ellroy's own novel); Chinatown, Farewell My Lovely, Harper, and The Big Sleep.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2023
man, i admit i had unfairly high hopes for this one after devouring ellroy’s first novel ‘browns requiem,’ and the first half really had me thinking it was gonna be another 5-star book, just as riveting as the first.
turns out it is and it isn’t.
yes, it’s the same type of unpolished, raw and visceral storytelling, but the ending just isn’t quite as impactful. elroy’s cooked up a solid story, with nary a boring chapter —- but in the third act, it just doesn’t quite crescendo and peak like brown’s requiem does in its finale. it’s still a strong ending, but it comes right after some heavy exposition to set it up, and as powerful as the information we get actually is, it’s still a clunky pacing problem that slows down the book in the third act, exactly when it should be speeding up.
thankfully theres a full recovery for the actual climax and ellroy comes through, delivering hard on the comeuppance part of the finale.
i’ve a feeling that a later revisit post brown’s-requiem-afterglow, might kick this review up to a 4 star rating for me.
for now, another good book by james ellroy, even if it doesn’t quiet soar as maniacally as his debut novel, which i was hella bonkers for.
next stop: ‘blood on the moon.’ book one in ellroy’s first LA quartet. i’ve got a few books to get through before i hit the second quartet, including the L.A. confidential novel, but i’m stupid excited ;)
my ellroy period has been long overdue.
turns out it is and it isn’t.
yes, it’s the same type of unpolished, raw and visceral storytelling, but the ending just isn’t quite as impactful. elroy’s cooked up a solid story, with nary a boring chapter —- but in the third act, it just doesn’t quite crescendo and peak like brown’s requiem does in its finale. it’s still a strong ending, but it comes right after some heavy exposition to set it up, and as powerful as the information we get actually is, it’s still a clunky pacing problem that slows down the book in the third act, exactly when it should be speeding up.
thankfully theres a full recovery for the actual climax and ellroy comes through, delivering hard on the comeuppance part of the finale.
i’ve a feeling that a later revisit post brown’s-requiem-afterglow, might kick this review up to a 4 star rating for me.
for now, another good book by james ellroy, even if it doesn’t quiet soar as maniacally as his debut novel, which i was hella bonkers for.
next stop: ‘blood on the moon.’ book one in ellroy’s first LA quartet. i’ve got a few books to get through before i hit the second quartet, including the L.A. confidential novel, but i’m stupid excited ;)
my ellroy period has been long overdue.
June 2, 2021
Ovo je jedan od ranijih romana Džejmsa Elroja i to se baš primećuje. Njegov stil pisanja može biti neugodan novim čitaocima, ali kada se naviknete ne preostaje vam ništa drugo nego da uživate u načinu na koji autor prenosi složene i mračne misli. Ovo delo je čitljivije sa manje slenga nego u kasnijim romanima. Ako volite stare policijske emisije i filmove iz 50-ih i 60-ih godina, svideće vam se. Ambijent LA 50-ih je sjajan. Policija, lukavi likovi, komplikovani muškarci i žene... Nisam baš sigurna da je ovo klasičan NOAR roman. Zapravo, kraj nije uopšte onakav kakav bih očekivala da nađem u Noar romanu. Bez obzira na to prilično mi se dopao. U drugom delu romana je malo ubrzao rasplet i ubacio par predvidivih situacija. Stoga, ocena manje.
April 27, 2018
"'Wonder' meant the same thing to both of us: the job, the streets, the people, and the mutable ethos of we who had to deal daily with drunks, hopheads, gunsels, wienie-waggers, hookers, reffer smokers, burglars, and the unamed lonely detritus of the human race."
- James Ellroy, Clandestine
An early Ellroy, that planted many of the themes and dark LA seeds that would eventually sprout and mature in his LA Quartet novels (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, & White Jazz). The book isn't as good as his Quartet, but if you've finished the four and are looking for more Ellroy LA Noir, this is a good place to check out. It was originally published in the early 82 and still hold up very well.
- James Ellroy, Clandestine
An early Ellroy, that planted many of the themes and dark LA seeds that would eventually sprout and mature in his LA Quartet novels (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, & White Jazz). The book isn't as good as his Quartet, but if you've finished the four and are looking for more Ellroy LA Noir, this is a good place to check out. It was originally published in the early 82 and still hold up very well.
July 25, 2017
A cracking piece of crime fiction and an early and personal novel from Ellroy after the slaying of his own mother. Here in 50's Los Angles ambitious rookie cop Fred Underhill (who is also too cocky and smug for his own good) tackles a murder case involving a strangled female to try and get a name for himself so he is catapulted up through the ranks, the woman in question was a lonely dame he had recently picked up in bar and spent the night with. Eventually this would lead him to team up with the fearsome and psychotic Lieutenant Dudley Smith (his first outing for Ellroy) but things don't go to plan and in the end he is forced to stand down. A few years later another killing similar to the one before and this lingers in his mind and stays there, once a cop always a cop and it's not long before he starts up another investigation on his own which will send him on a journey of obsession into the dark underbelly of Tinseltown and beyond to seek justice and the truth regardless of where this will leave him. And it's from the mid-point onwards that Ellroy's talent really shines through with a dark, complex and enthralling plot he perfectly captures both place and time. A love story, multi-layered characters, twists and turns, plenty of leads and suspects to send your brain into a frenzy make up a great hard as nails noir thriller!.
This would go on and set up the scene for his now legendary 'LA Quartet' of which I would say there are more similarities with ' The Black Dahlia' and especially 'The Big Nowhere' (my personal
favorite) although this was more rougher around the edges and easier to read because the cop slang dialogue of his later work was not present, so unless you were hanging around with cops in downtown LA back in the 50's this works well and is understandable...at least to some degree anyway. As for James Ellroy he is master of the crime genre, and is set apart from everybody else because of his ability to go that extra mile. This would be a great introduction to Ellroy for those who have never read him.
This would go on and set up the scene for his now legendary 'LA Quartet' of which I would say there are more similarities with ' The Black Dahlia' and especially 'The Big Nowhere' (my personal
favorite) although this was more rougher around the edges and easier to read because the cop slang dialogue of his later work was not present, so unless you were hanging around with cops in downtown LA back in the 50's this works well and is understandable...at least to some degree anyway. As for James Ellroy he is master of the crime genre, and is set apart from everybody else because of his ability to go that extra mile. This would be a great introduction to Ellroy for those who have never read him.
September 17, 2021
full post here (along with Brown's Requiem)
http://www.crimesegments.com/2021/09/...
If you read Ellroy's My Dark Places before reading this book, you will have done yourself a favor, as he gets more personal, more autobiographical than in Brown's Requiem, tackling his mother's 1958 murder, albeit in fictional form. It's so very easy to spot, of course, having read this novel after reading Ellroy's autobiography, but he also admits to it in a 1996 interview with Laura Miller at Salon where he says that Clandestine was a "chronologically-altered, greatly fictionalized account" of her murder. Unlike real life though, in Clandestine he also "solved the case." My Dark Places also allowed for recognizing a fictional young James Ellroy in this book who under a different name, makes an appearance here as well.
Here the author moves on from the PI novel that is Brown's Requiem to offer a story of a cop, Freddy Underhill, whose ambition gets the better of him, making decisions for which the outcome will bring serious repercussions to his life both personally and professionally. When all seems lost, there is a small measure of hope for Underhill when later he happens across the story of a "dead nurse," (read Ellroy's mother in real life); taking on her murder may offer a shot at justice for the dead, as well as for his own personal redemption.
Ellroy introduces a number of characters (and themes as well) that will reappear in later work, most notably Dudley Smith, a truly bad guy even here, with more than enough hints of what will happen to anyone who crosses him. This certainly book is more future Ellroy than its predecessor, reading very much like a prequel to the LA Quartet; it would be a great place to start for anyone who's considering Ellroy's work. Beware: it's good, but it ain't pretty.
http://www.crimesegments.com/2021/09/...
If you read Ellroy's My Dark Places before reading this book, you will have done yourself a favor, as he gets more personal, more autobiographical than in Brown's Requiem, tackling his mother's 1958 murder, albeit in fictional form. It's so very easy to spot, of course, having read this novel after reading Ellroy's autobiography, but he also admits to it in a 1996 interview with Laura Miller at Salon where he says that Clandestine was a "chronologically-altered, greatly fictionalized account" of her murder. Unlike real life though, in Clandestine he also "solved the case." My Dark Places also allowed for recognizing a fictional young James Ellroy in this book who under a different name, makes an appearance here as well.
Here the author moves on from the PI novel that is Brown's Requiem to offer a story of a cop, Freddy Underhill, whose ambition gets the better of him, making decisions for which the outcome will bring serious repercussions to his life both personally and professionally. When all seems lost, there is a small measure of hope for Underhill when later he happens across the story of a "dead nurse," (read Ellroy's mother in real life); taking on her murder may offer a shot at justice for the dead, as well as for his own personal redemption.
Ellroy introduces a number of characters (and themes as well) that will reappear in later work, most notably Dudley Smith, a truly bad guy even here, with more than enough hints of what will happen to anyone who crosses him. This certainly book is more future Ellroy than its predecessor, reading very much like a prequel to the LA Quartet; it would be a great place to start for anyone who's considering Ellroy's work. Beware: it's good, but it ain't pretty.
December 13, 2011
Pretty good early Ellroy. Though I had problems with the middle third (the pacing just goes totally dead as he goes into a longwinded, heavily expository backstory), I'd still call this "essential" to anyone (like me) who loved the LA Quartet--as it introduces key characters, like Dudley Smith, and locales, like the Victory Motel, that figure so prominently in the Quartet. In fact, the entire first third reads a lot like the LA Quartet, though a lot less polished. Once the story moves away from LA and the LAPD, it goes a bit off the rails....but there's still plenty here to like, you can see all of Ellroy's obsessions taking root, and a few sentences here and there hint of the genius to come.
March 20, 2008
When I went to a James Ellroy reading I went through my collection to find a good one I wanted him to autograph. I picked "Clandestine". It's that good! When he signed it, he wrote:
"To Andy -
Doom Dwells!
James Ellroy"
"To Andy -
Doom Dwells!
James Ellroy"
November 28, 2021
Alle origini della leggenda letteraria ellroyana. I tanti pregi e i rari difetti della scrittura del nostro eroe ci sono gia' tutti, ancora non completamente dispiegati, ma evidenti. Di qui a poco partira' la piena e perversamemete pervasiva epopea americana.
April 29, 2021
Clandestine - james ellroy.
ಇದರ ಕುರಿತಾಗಿ ವಿಮರ್ಶಕರು ಅಷ್ಟೇನೂ ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯ ಇಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆಗಿನ್ನೂ ತನ್ನ ಗುಂಡು ಹೊಡೆವ ಶೈಲಿಯ ಬರವಣಿಗೆಯ ಹೊಳಹುಗಳ ಹುಡುಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಎಲ್ರಾಯ್.
ಆದರೆ ಅವನ ಮುಂದಿನ ಬರವಣಿಗೆಯ ಬೇರುಗಳ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಣಬಹುದು. ಎಲ್ಲಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಅವನ ಪ್ರಸಿದ್ಧ ಕ್ರೂಕೆಡ್ ಕಾಪ್ ' ಡಡ್ಲೇ ಸ್ಮಿತ್ ' ಬರೋದು ಇಲ್ಲೇ.. ಮೊದಲ ಸಲಕ್ಕೆ ಕಷ್ಟವಾಯಿತು .ಪಕ್ಕಕ್ಕಿಟ್ಟವ ಕೂತು ಓದಿ ಮುಗಿಸಿದೆ.
1951 ರ ಸಮಯ. ಅವ ಪೋಲಿಸ್. ಅವನು ಮತ್ತು ಅವನ ಪಾರ್ಟನರ್. ಅಪರಾಧಿಗಳ ಬೆನ್ನಟ್ಟುವುದು. ಹುಡುಗಿಯರು ಸಿಕ್ಕರೆ, ಮತ್ತೆ ಗಾಲ್ಫ್. ಶೂಟೌಟ್ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಅವನ ಪಾರ್ಟನರ್ ಸಾಯುತ್ತಾನೆ.ಇವನಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಕೆಲಸ ಬೇಸರ ಮೂಡಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಅದರ ನಡುವೆಯೂ ಒಂದು ಕೊಲೆಯ ತನಿಖೆಗೆ ಹೋದವನಿಗೆ ಇದು ಸರಣಿ ಹಂತಕನ ಕೃತ್ಯ ಇರಬಹುದು ಎಂಬ ಅನುಮಾನ. ಅದರ ಹಿಂದೆ ಬಿದ್ದು ಕೆಲಸ ಕೂಡ ಕಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾನೆ. ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಕಂಡು ಹಿಡಿಯುತ್ತಾನೆ. ಇಷ್ಟೇ ಕತೆ. ನಡುವೆ ಕಥೆ ತೀರಾ ನೀರಸವಾಯ್ತು. ಓದಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ಇದನ್ನು ಓದದಿದ್ರೂ ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿತ್ತು ಅನಿಸಿತು.
ಇದರ ಕುರಿತಾಗಿ ವಿಮರ್ಶಕರು ಅಷ್ಟೇನೂ ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯ ಇಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆಗಿನ್ನೂ ತನ್ನ ಗುಂಡು ಹೊಡೆವ ಶೈಲಿಯ ಬರವಣಿಗೆಯ ಹೊಳಹುಗಳ ಹುಡುಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಎಲ್ರಾಯ್.
ಆದರೆ ಅವನ ಮುಂದಿನ ಬರವಣಿಗೆಯ ಬೇರುಗಳ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾಣಬಹುದು. ಎಲ್ಲಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಅವನ ಪ್ರಸಿದ್ಧ ಕ್ರೂಕೆಡ್ ಕಾಪ್ ' ಡಡ್ಲೇ ಸ್ಮಿತ್ ' ಬರೋದು ಇಲ್ಲೇ.. ಮೊದಲ ಸಲಕ್ಕೆ ಕಷ್ಟವಾಯಿತು .ಪಕ್ಕಕ್ಕಿಟ್ಟವ ಕೂತು ಓದಿ ಮುಗಿಸಿದೆ.
1951 ರ ಸಮಯ. ಅವ ಪೋಲಿಸ್. ಅವನು ಮತ್ತು ಅವನ ಪಾರ್ಟನರ್. ಅಪರಾಧಿಗಳ ಬೆನ್ನಟ್ಟುವುದು. ಹುಡುಗಿಯರು ಸಿಕ್ಕರೆ, ಮತ್ತೆ ಗಾಲ್ಫ್. ಶೂಟೌಟ್ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಅವನ ಪಾರ್ಟನರ್ ಸಾಯುತ್ತಾನೆ.ಇವನಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ಕೆಲಸ ಬೇಸರ ಮೂಡಿಸುತ್ತದೆ. ಅದರ ನಡುವೆಯೂ ಒಂದು ಕೊಲೆಯ ತನಿಖೆಗೆ ಹೋದವನಿಗೆ ಇದು ಸರಣಿ ಹಂತಕನ ಕೃತ್ಯ ಇರಬಹುದು ಎಂಬ ಅನುಮಾನ. ಅದರ ಹಿಂದೆ ಬಿದ್ದು ಕೆಲಸ ಕೂಡ ಕಳೆದುಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾನೆ. ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಕಂಡು ಹಿಡಿಯುತ್ತಾನೆ. ಇಷ್ಟೇ ಕತೆ. ನಡುವೆ ಕಥೆ ತೀರಾ ನೀರಸವಾಯ್ತು. ಓದಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ಇದನ್ನು ಓದದಿದ್ರೂ ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿತ್ತು ಅನಿಸಿತು.
October 9, 2014
Even when reading one of James Ellroy's earliest and most conventional novels, it's easy to understand both why he divides fans of crime fiction so much *and* why he's one of the writers in the genre who have earned the most respect from academic literary circles. "Clandestine" is far from perfect, but mostly succeeds in going even further than Hammett and Chandler in elevating the detective novel to serious literature.
From the first page, you can notice that Ellroy's sensibility is closer to the common stereotype of literary fiction than 95% of authors in his genre: There's a clear inspiration from the concise, hard-boiled prose of the aforementioned classics, but his style is so much more abstract and fragmented it sometimes gives off a Thomas Pynchon-lite feel. It wouldn't surprise me if Ellroy in turn inspired Pynchon's own retro detective novel "Inherent Vice".
The storyline is likewise just as concerned with exploring the protagonist's psyche as with solving its central murder mystery: A process that in the story takes several years, and ties up several plot tangents that at first appeared to be red herrings in the unravelling of its central conspiracy. At the same time, the depiction of LA's sleaziest parts gets way more explicit than the 1930s pulp writers could ever get away with to the point the end results sometimes feel more like Bukowski than Chandler. (maybe for a reason, many elements in the story are taken directly from the still unsolved murder of the author's own mother during his childhood)
As to be expected from an early novel by a very ambitious author, "Clandestine" doesn't quite reach its high aspirations. The plot structure feels clumsy early on when building up its basic premises and also later when the shocking revelations start piling up it comes close to straining the reader's suspension of disbelief. Neither can Ellroy's prose quite make up for the narrative issues, since it's not as effortless-looking in its brilliance as Chandler... let alone as advanced as Pynchon. However, for the most part it works because how Ellroy uses the same underlying themes recurring in all the disparate tangents to pull them together into a unified narrative.
I'm definitely curious about the LA Quartet now, since "Clandestine" is often seen as a test run for those novels.
From the first page, you can notice that Ellroy's sensibility is closer to the common stereotype of literary fiction than 95% of authors in his genre: There's a clear inspiration from the concise, hard-boiled prose of the aforementioned classics, but his style is so much more abstract and fragmented it sometimes gives off a Thomas Pynchon-lite feel. It wouldn't surprise me if Ellroy in turn inspired Pynchon's own retro detective novel "Inherent Vice".
The storyline is likewise just as concerned with exploring the protagonist's psyche as with solving its central murder mystery: A process that in the story takes several years, and ties up several plot tangents that at first appeared to be red herrings in the unravelling of its central conspiracy. At the same time, the depiction of LA's sleaziest parts gets way more explicit than the 1930s pulp writers could ever get away with to the point the end results sometimes feel more like Bukowski than Chandler. (maybe for a reason, many elements in the story are taken directly from the still unsolved murder of the author's own mother during his childhood)
As to be expected from an early novel by a very ambitious author, "Clandestine" doesn't quite reach its high aspirations. The plot structure feels clumsy early on when building up its basic premises and also later when the shocking revelations start piling up it comes close to straining the reader's suspension of disbelief. Neither can Ellroy's prose quite make up for the narrative issues, since it's not as effortless-looking in its brilliance as Chandler... let alone as advanced as Pynchon. However, for the most part it works because how Ellroy uses the same underlying themes recurring in all the disparate tangents to pull them together into a unified narrative.
I'm definitely curious about the LA Quartet now, since "Clandestine" is often seen as a test run for those novels.
December 31, 2015
I love L.A. Confidential (the film) so much that I wanted to read a book that evoked the same milieu, the same literary "terroir," while avoiding a retread of the same plot that would inevitably come with reading L.A. Confidential (the novel) itself. What better way to accomplish that goal than by going to James Ellroy's other work? Clandestine isn't one of Ellroy's most widely-known efforts, but possibly because it was one of his earliest, there's a rough-edged "rawness" to the writing that I found more absorbing than some other, more obviously polished hard-boiled novels. Reading this was a bit like reading Hammett with a twist of Chandler -- sharp prose, engrossing plot, and complex and deeply flawed characters. At times it seems that Ellroy is engaging in a public therapy session to work out his well-publicized personal issues in his writing -- and I say, fine by me; it results in some superb noir. Highly recommended.
July 3, 2008
I haven't looked into where this sits in Ellroy's oeuvre, but it's a bit of a mess.
Plus side: a few of the characters are the most compelling of Ellroy's creations, I really didn't know what was really going on until the last chapter.
Downside: I had a very hard time understanding the motives of the very complex main character, Fred Underhill. Seems that Ellroy was trying to include as many disparate traits in one man as he could get away with, and I don't think he really does get away with it.
Still a good, quick and rich read, but more than any Ellroy to date, it made me feel that I had to suspend judgement a number of times to move forward with the story.
Plus side: a few of the characters are the most compelling of Ellroy's creations, I really didn't know what was really going on until the last chapter.
Downside: I had a very hard time understanding the motives of the very complex main character, Fred Underhill. Seems that Ellroy was trying to include as many disparate traits in one man as he could get away with, and I don't think he really does get away with it.
Still a good, quick and rich read, but more than any Ellroy to date, it made me feel that I had to suspend judgement a number of times to move forward with the story.
December 3, 2023
Clandestine by James Ellroy. The author notes, “I wrote Clandestine in 1980. I was working as a caddy at Bel-Air Country Club in L.A. and chasing a woman attending law school. It was my second novel. I was a hard-working mother fucker back in 1980. I packed golf bags six days a week and wrote all seven nights. I wrote Clandestine in eight months. It’s my first attempt to fictionally address the murder of my own mother. It’s a wildly personal novel and very much the period forerunner of my L.A. Quartet. I had a blast writing Clandestine. I think it shows. I hope it transports you back to 1951”
Frederick Underhill. “During the dark, cold winter of 1951 I worked Wilshire Patrol, played a lot of golf, and sought out the company of lonely women for one-night stands. Nostalgia victimizes the unknowing by instilling in them a desire for a simplicity and innocence they can never achieve. The fifties weren’t a more innocent time. The dark salients that govern life today were there then, only they were harder to find.” … “My patrol partner was Wacky Walker. He was five years my senior, with the same amount of time in the department. With Wacky it was poetry, wonder, and golf; with me it was women, wonder, and golf. “Wonder” meant the same thing to both of us: the job, the streets, the people, and the mutable ethos of we who had to deal daily with drunks, hopheads, gunsels, wienie waggers, hookers, reefer smokers, burglars, and the unnamed lonely detritus of the human race.” … “Wacky would lead me to the door, shake my hand warmly, and retire back to his living room to drink and write poetry. Leaving me, Frederick Upton Underhill, twenty-six-year-old outsized crew-cut cop, on his doorstep contemplating nightfall and neon and what I could do about it in what I would later know to be the last season of my youth. … When my rapacious ambition thrust me into a brutal labyrinth of death and shame and betrayal in 1951, it was only my beginning.”
Take the Night Train. “Wacky and I entered the locker room we couldn’t believe our eyes. Reuben, in his Jockey shorts, was twisting all around, blasting out the wild first notes of “Night Train” while the fat black Lab writhed on his back on the concrete floor, yipping, yowling, and shooting a tremendous stream of urine straight up into the air.” … “Wacky named the dog “Night Train” and took him home with him. He serenaded the dog for weeks with saxophone music on his phonograph and fed him steak, all in the fruitless hope of turning him into a caddy. Finally Wacky gave up, decided that Night Train was a free spirit, and cut him loose.”
On the Course. “well-aided by Wacky’s superb green reads and the club selections and yardage calls of our short-dog–sucking wino caddy, “Dirt Road” Dave. “Hey, hey, shit, shit,” Dave would say. “Play a soft seven and knock it down short of the green. It breaks left to right off the mound. Hey, hey, shit, shit.” Dave fascinated me: he was both sullen and colloquial, dirty and proud, with an air of supreme nonchalance undercut by terrified blue eyes. Somehow, I wanted his knowledge.” … “ Dirt Road Dave let my bag fall to the grass at my feet, then he spat. “I know you’re a smart-mouth young cop. I know that’s a roscoe and handcuffs under your sweater. I know the kind of things you guys do that you think people don’t know about. I know guys like you die hungry.” His finality was awesome.”
The Wonder. It was awesome and filled with lonely wonder. I took Lorna’s hand and kissed it. “You know the wonder, Lorna,” I said. “What’s the wonder?” “I don’t know, just the wonderful elliptical, mysterious stuff that we’re never going to know completely.” Lorna nodded. She knew. “And that’s why you’re a cop?” “Exactly.” … “But I want justice. The wonder is for artists and writers and other creative people. Their vision gives us the compassion to face our own lives and treat other people decently, because we know how imperfect the world is. But I want justice. I want specifics. I want to be able to look at the people I send to court and say, ‘He’s guilty”
LAPD Homicide Lt. Smith [Demonic Dudley]. “Freddy, lad,” Dudley hailed. “Top of the morning!” “Good morning, skipper, good morning, Dick,” I said. “Underhill,” Carlisle said, blank-faced. “Well, lad, are you ready?” “Yes.” “All right, then. Grand. Mike?” “Ready, Dudley. “Dick?” “Ready, boss.” … “My heart was beating very fast and I kept stealing sidelong glances at Dudley. His tiny brown eyes were glazed over with something that went far beyond acting. This was the real Dudley Smith.” … “Dudley’s got pals on the Gardena force—they’ll leave us alone.” I smiled, again warming to Dudley Smith as a pragmatic wonder broker. “What are you and Mike going to do?” “Mike’s going to take it all down in shorthand, then edit it after Engels confesses. He’s a whiz. I’m going to play bad guy along with Dudley.” “What if he doesn’t confess?” “He’ll confess,”
Lorna. “The very prototype of love’s efficacy: if it doesn’t work, try something else. If that doesn’t work, try something else again. If that fails, review your options and search out your errors. Just keep going, Freddy” … “For the first time I felt my marriage vows begin to impinge me. I began to feel that I couldn’t ever be the man Lorna wanted me to be. And for the first time I didn’t care, because the Lorna of 1955 was not the Lorna I married in 1951. I started to get itchy to break the whole thing up, to blow it all sky high”
Thus Freddie proceeds to “blow it all sky high” in search of the wonder, redemption and getting things right.
Frederick Underhill. “During the dark, cold winter of 1951 I worked Wilshire Patrol, played a lot of golf, and sought out the company of lonely women for one-night stands. Nostalgia victimizes the unknowing by instilling in them a desire for a simplicity and innocence they can never achieve. The fifties weren’t a more innocent time. The dark salients that govern life today were there then, only they were harder to find.” … “My patrol partner was Wacky Walker. He was five years my senior, with the same amount of time in the department. With Wacky it was poetry, wonder, and golf; with me it was women, wonder, and golf. “Wonder” meant the same thing to both of us: the job, the streets, the people, and the mutable ethos of we who had to deal daily with drunks, hopheads, gunsels, wienie waggers, hookers, reefer smokers, burglars, and the unnamed lonely detritus of the human race.” … “Wacky would lead me to the door, shake my hand warmly, and retire back to his living room to drink and write poetry. Leaving me, Frederick Upton Underhill, twenty-six-year-old outsized crew-cut cop, on his doorstep contemplating nightfall and neon and what I could do about it in what I would later know to be the last season of my youth. … When my rapacious ambition thrust me into a brutal labyrinth of death and shame and betrayal in 1951, it was only my beginning.”
Take the Night Train. “Wacky and I entered the locker room we couldn’t believe our eyes. Reuben, in his Jockey shorts, was twisting all around, blasting out the wild first notes of “Night Train” while the fat black Lab writhed on his back on the concrete floor, yipping, yowling, and shooting a tremendous stream of urine straight up into the air.” … “Wacky named the dog “Night Train” and took him home with him. He serenaded the dog for weeks with saxophone music on his phonograph and fed him steak, all in the fruitless hope of turning him into a caddy. Finally Wacky gave up, decided that Night Train was a free spirit, and cut him loose.”
On the Course. “well-aided by Wacky’s superb green reads and the club selections and yardage calls of our short-dog–sucking wino caddy, “Dirt Road” Dave. “Hey, hey, shit, shit,” Dave would say. “Play a soft seven and knock it down short of the green. It breaks left to right off the mound. Hey, hey, shit, shit.” Dave fascinated me: he was both sullen and colloquial, dirty and proud, with an air of supreme nonchalance undercut by terrified blue eyes. Somehow, I wanted his knowledge.” … “ Dirt Road Dave let my bag fall to the grass at my feet, then he spat. “I know you’re a smart-mouth young cop. I know that’s a roscoe and handcuffs under your sweater. I know the kind of things you guys do that you think people don’t know about. I know guys like you die hungry.” His finality was awesome.”
The Wonder. It was awesome and filled with lonely wonder. I took Lorna’s hand and kissed it. “You know the wonder, Lorna,” I said. “What’s the wonder?” “I don’t know, just the wonderful elliptical, mysterious stuff that we’re never going to know completely.” Lorna nodded. She knew. “And that’s why you’re a cop?” “Exactly.” … “But I want justice. The wonder is for artists and writers and other creative people. Their vision gives us the compassion to face our own lives and treat other people decently, because we know how imperfect the world is. But I want justice. I want specifics. I want to be able to look at the people I send to court and say, ‘He’s guilty”
LAPD Homicide Lt. Smith [Demonic Dudley]. “Freddy, lad,” Dudley hailed. “Top of the morning!” “Good morning, skipper, good morning, Dick,” I said. “Underhill,” Carlisle said, blank-faced. “Well, lad, are you ready?” “Yes.” “All right, then. Grand. Mike?” “Ready, Dudley. “Dick?” “Ready, boss.” … “My heart was beating very fast and I kept stealing sidelong glances at Dudley. His tiny brown eyes were glazed over with something that went far beyond acting. This was the real Dudley Smith.” … “Dudley’s got pals on the Gardena force—they’ll leave us alone.” I smiled, again warming to Dudley Smith as a pragmatic wonder broker. “What are you and Mike going to do?” “Mike’s going to take it all down in shorthand, then edit it after Engels confesses. He’s a whiz. I’m going to play bad guy along with Dudley.” “What if he doesn’t confess?” “He’ll confess,”
Lorna. “The very prototype of love’s efficacy: if it doesn’t work, try something else. If that doesn’t work, try something else again. If that fails, review your options and search out your errors. Just keep going, Freddy” … “For the first time I felt my marriage vows begin to impinge me. I began to feel that I couldn’t ever be the man Lorna wanted me to be. And for the first time I didn’t care, because the Lorna of 1955 was not the Lorna I married in 1951. I started to get itchy to break the whole thing up, to blow it all sky high”
Thus Freddie proceeds to “blow it all sky high” in search of the wonder, redemption and getting things right.
July 7, 2022
Absolutely not one of his best books.
June 8, 2017
review of
James Ellroy's Clandestine
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - JUNE 6, 2017
Read the full review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
It's been a while since I read an Ellroy bk. I'd forgotten what a good writer he is. Take this 2nd paragraph of the Prologue as an example:
"Nostalgia victimizes the unknowing by instilling in them a desire for simplicity and innocence they can never achieve. The fifties weren't a more innocent time. The dark salients that govern life today were there then, only they were harder to find. That was why I was a cop, and why I chased women. Golf was no more than an island of purity, something I did exceedingly well. I could drive a golf ball three hundred yards. Golf was breathtaking cleanliness and simplicity." - p 1
Some people chase ambulances, some people chase women, women move slower.
"I breathed it all in, and gave what I hoped would pass for an ironic grin: "So you don't like cops," I said. "Big deal. Most people don't. Would you rather have anarchy? There's only one answer, Miss Weinberg. This is not the best of all possible worlds. We have to accept that, and get on with the administration of justice."" - p 30
Of course, these days there're plenty of people who, yes, wd rather have anarchy - & those who wdn't, for the most part, are only reacting to the term like a Pavlovian dog preconditioned to experience fear w/o having more than a very vague idea of what it is they're afraid of.
"Lorna did not relent. "I can't accept that, and I won't. You can't change human nature, but you can change the law. And you can weed out some of the sociopaths who carry badges and guns.
""For example, my father told me you were curious about that man who caddied for you today. I know about him. He's one of your victims. An attorney who's a member of this club once represented Dirt Road Dave in his suit against the Lose Angeles Police Department. During the Depression he had stolen some food from a grocery. Two policemen saw him do it and chased him, and when they finally caught him they were angry. They beat him unconscious with their billy clubs. Dave suffered internal hemorrhaging and almost died. He sustained irreparable brain damage. The A.C.L.U. sued your police department, and lost. Cops are above the law and can do what they please." - p 30
Now, I'm an anarchist &, unlike most anarchists I know, I don't hate cops. I think most of them are working class people who are in over their heads. Still, let's be realistic: the above story fits in w/ my idea of realism. I'll give a few relevant stories that explain why:
I had a friend whose brother was in the LA Police. One day my friend was at his parents' house when his brother came by w/ another policemen. They were joking about going out to "shoot cans. Afri-cans, Mexi-cans" Nyuk, nyuk. Black Panthers talked about the police as being like an occupying army in their neighborhoods. I think that's spot-on.
I had another friend who was a junkie poet. He was a nice guy, he probably resorted to some theft to support his habit. The police took a dislike to him. 2 cops cornered him in an alley & one of them systematically beat him w/ his billy club in the same spot on his stomach over & over again to cause internal organ damage &, thereby, shorten his life. He sued the police w/ the usual outcome of NADA police responsibility. I haven't seen the friend for decades. He's probably dead. He was a sensitive person who just cdn't make it in this society in the approved-of ways. If being a poet in this society got more respect he probably wdn't've had to resort to theft - but being a poet or most other types of creative person is undervalued to an extreme in this society.
Yet another friend of mine, of Mexican descent, was at a protest in California at a motel where illegal immigrants were being held for deportation. My friend was arrested & taken to jail where he was hog-tied (ie: w/ his hands tied behind his back to his feet) & beaten repeatedly on the soles of his feet so that he cdn't walk properly. That was torture. His mom reported this to Amnesty International who informed her that there is no torture in the US. They've since changed their tune.
I've sat in a courtrm before & witnessed a man sentenced to jail for stealing a piece of meat from a supermarket. The man was very skinny. My point is that if you're poor in this country there's a different set of laws & treatments for you than if you're rich. The police know that rich people have too many retaliatory resources AND that their actual purpose is to.. protect & serve THE RICH. They're a bodyguard pd for w/ public money, heaven forbid that the rich shd have to pay for anything.
For maybe the 1st 15 yrs that I had sex, from 1970 to 1985 - & more sporadically up 'til 1996 - the use of diaphragms was a common form of impregnation-prevention. This was preferable to birth-control pills b/c it didn't disrupt the biological cycle of the woman. Once fear-of-AIDS changed the whole dynamic of sex, the use of condoms started to dominate & diaphragms seemed to fall into disuse. I never really had a handle on when diaphragms were invented so it was interesting to find them in the 1951 of this novel:
"I pushed open the door. Maggie was starting to insert her diaphragm when she saw me. She jumped, startled and angry, into the bathtub, where she covered herself with the shower curtain.
""Bill;" she said, flushed. "Please, goddamnit, I'll just be a minute. Wait in the bedroom, honey. Please. I'll be right there."
""I just wanted to watch you, sweetheart," I said. "I wanted to help you with it."
"Maggie said nervously, "It's a private thing, Bill. A woman's thing. If you don't see me do it, then you don't really know it's there. It's better for you. Believe me, honey."" - p 38
Ah, humans & our complications. This was a one-nite stand. Can you imagine a cat-in-heat going thru this? [Cat steps into litter box & turns her back] "Meooooowweerr."
"Jack groaned and the old woman giggled as Wacky did his Frankenstein imitation, walking toward her slowly, arms extended, groaning deeply." - p 46
"232. Player-Belt Girdle Monster
- Neoista?! Puccs - Black Black Galéria & environs, (Buda)Pest, Hungary
- Monday, July 7th, 1997, 6PM
- Black Black Galéria is the gallery of Opál Színház (Opal Theater). It's in a complex of basements which was entered by stooping through a sidewalk-level window & walking down a sloping board laying on a sand pile. Large piles of sand were faintly visible off to the left when entering. At the bottom of the piles were 2 rooms. Off to the right off of the 1st room was the closed off entrance to living quarters. Off to the left of the 2nd room, 1 could walk through another awkward entrance down into another room where Amen! had an exhibit. At the end of this room was a cage that blocked entrance to a room beyond. This cage is reputed to've been lived in for 1 month by 1 of the main people of Opál Színház. I stayed mainly in the dim light on the sand piles off to the left when 1 entered - playing tapes with my Player Belt (see entries 212 & 217, etc..). Eventually, etta cetera, Brian Damage, Ghera & I ventured forth into the gypsy neighborhood - with the Player Belt playing my tapes all the while. Back in front of Black Black, the neighborhood people had gathered out of curiousity. My tape started playing loud steady explosive sounds & I began to walk stiffly with my feet hitting the pavement in sync with the sounds holding my arms out like the stereotypical zombie/monster. etta probably took something from me (like my flaming steam iron necklace) & I started pursuing her through the thick of the crowd. Children started laughing & pretending to be terrified & running frantically to get out of my way."
How did that get in there? I'm listening to Lambert, Hendricks & Ross's "Sing a Song of Basie" (recorded 1957 - a little late to be of the same period as the novel) as I wrote this. Thought you might like to know. 'Bill' insults his superior officer & pays the price, a transfer to an unglamorous & dangerous district:
"Wacky Walker never made it to Seventy-seventh Street Division, Watts, L.A.'s heart of darkness, but I did.
"Beckworth bided his time and in June, when Captain Larson retired, to muted fanfare, after thirty-three years on the job, I got my orders: Officer Frederick U. Underhill, 1647, to Seventy-seventh Street Division to fill manpower shortage.
"Which was a joke: the ranks at Seventy-seventh Street were swelled to bursting. The ancient red brick building that served the hottest per capita crime area in the city was painfully overstaffed with cops, and undersupplied with every crime-fighting provision from toilet paper to fingerprinting ink. There was a shortage of chairs, tables, floor space, lockers, soap, brooms, mops, and even writing implements. There was no shortage, however, of prisoners. There was an unsurpassed daily and nightly parade of burglars, purse snatchers, dope addicts, drunks, wife beaters, brawlers, pimps, hookers, perverts, and cranks." - p 65
I'm sure that Ellroy is well-read & researched on the eras he represents but this still seems daunting to me as a writerly task to try to accurately represent a place & time he doesn't have personal familiarity w/. It's 1951, & Ellroy has Underhill blackmailing a bartender for information b/c he's caught him w/ pot:
""Shut up. Listen to me. I'm interested in pickup artists—pussy-hounds, guys who score regular here. You help me out and I'll let you slide. You don't and I'll bust you. I'll call for a patrol car and tell the bulls you tried to sell me these three reefers. That's two to ten at Quentin. What's it gonna be?"" - p 83
Two to 10 at San Quentin prison for selling 3 joints. Those were the days. The days of ridiculous penalties for victimless crimes. The days when being gay meant hiding it to save yr life. Henry Cowell, major American composer & music theorist & publisher, etc, was imprisoned in San Quentin in 1936 w/ a 15 yr sentence for a "morals" charge. He wd've gotten out at the time this novel began if he'd served the full sentence, wch he didn't, he got out after 4 yrs.
I'd originally read that Cowell was busted in a sting operation for cruising in a park. Perhaps that story was circulated to generate more sympathy for him & for others like him. Wikipedia claims that having oral sex w/ a 17 yr old boy. I don't know wch story is true. Having been a 17 yr old boy in 1971 who hitch-hiked & got such offers fairly often I can truthfully say that saying no was all it took to prevent it from happening so I assume that the 17 yr old consented. At any rate, those were the days. The days when a major composer cd get sentenced to 15 yrs in prison b/c of his sexual activities. We're not talking Oscar Wilde in 1895, sentenced to 2 yrs hard labor for indecency, we're talking the 20th century.
""Don't thank me yet, Officer. You are a very gifted young man, but your arrogance supersedes your gifts. Arrogance cannot be tolerated in police officers; to tolerate it would be to promote anarchy. The Los Angeles Police Department is a superbly structured bureaucracy, one you have sworn allegiance to. Your actions have reviled the department. Know that, Underhill. Know that your ambition is threatening to kill you as a policeman. Do you understand me?"" - p 96
There they go, picking on anarchy again. What's so bad about thinking for yrself & sabotaging unjust institutions? Sheesh.
My 1st encounter of a close kind w/ Ellroy's work was upon witnessing the movie "L.A. Confidential". I loved it & thought it represented as great Film Noir made long after the 'classic' era for Noir. The Ellroy bk that the movie was based on was copyrighted in 1990, 8 yrs after Clandestine. Clandestine seems to hold the seeds of at least 3 later bks: L.A. Confidential, the Black Dahlia (1987), & My Dark Places (1996). The only bk that I've read by Ellroy earlier than Clandestine is Brown's Requiem (1981). Clandestine presages L.A. Confidential b/c it's got the brutal Lieutenant Dudley Smith in it taking a suspect to an abandoned motel & 'interrogating' him by beating the shit out of him until he gets a confession.
"Dudley Smith was a lieutenant in the homicide bureau, a fearsome personage and legendary cop who had killed five men in the line of duty. Irish-born and Los Angeles-raised, he still clung tenaciously to his high-pitched, musical brogue, which was as finely tuned as a Stradivarius. He often lectured at the academy on interrogation techniques, and I remembered how that brogue could be alternately soothing or brutal, inquisitive or dumbfounded, sympathetic or filled with pious rage." - p 97
Smith explains to Underhill something he did to try to discover who the Black Dahlia's killer was:
""Dick Carlisle and I snuck the stiff over to the warehouse late one night. I dyed her hair jet black, like the Dahlia's. I stripped her nude, and tied her ankles with a rope, and Dick and I hoisted her up feet first and hung her from a low ceiling beam. Then Dick went and got our eight degenerates from the Hall of Justice jail. We let them view her, one at a time, lad, with appropriate props. One scum was a knife man; he had scores of arrests for knife fighting. I handed him a butcher knife and made him slice the corpse. he could hardly do it. He didn't have it in him. Another filth was a child molester, recently paroled from Atascadero. His M.O. was asking little girls if he could kiss their private parts. I made him kiss the dead girl's private parts, smell that dead sex flesh up close. He couldn't do it. And on and on. I was looking for a reaction so vile, so unspeakable that I would know that this was the scum that killed Beth Short."" - p 125
It didn't work. I doubt that the above story is rooted in historical fact, it seems more likely to be rooted in Ellroy's lurid imagination. Maybe I'm wrong. Here's another story that seems more likely to be realistic:
"["]At five minutes of six we will kick in Eddie's door. We will subdue him, and put the fear of God into any colleen or homo who might be sharing his bed, then send them on their way. I have an interrogation place set up, an abandoned motel in Gardena. Freddy, Dick, Engels, and I will travel in my car. Mike will follow in his. This is apt to be a long interrogation, lads["]" - p 134
Think of the murders of Black Panthers Fred Hampton & Mark Clark (while they slept a drug-induced sleep as a result of downers put in their food by an undercover agent) by the police in Chicago in 1969 & you'll get a good idea of the way the police sometimes work.
In the meantime, Underhill is dating cop-critical legal eagle Lorna whose artistic taste we get a glimpse of:
"There was a Hieronymus Bosch painting that represented insanity—hysterical grotesque creatures in an undersea environment importuning God—or someone—for release from their madness. There was a Van Gogh job that featured flowery fields juxtaposed against brown grass and a somber sky. There was Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks"—three lonely people sitting in an all-night diner, not talking. It was awesome and filled with with lonely wonder." - p135
I share her tastes. At the same time that she's dating Underhill, however, he's being schooled by Smith. Dudley's techniques are do NOT appeal to Lorna's tastes:
""Eddie," I said, "do your parents know you're homosexual?"
""No."
""Do they know that Lillian is a lesbian?"
""No. Please!"
""You don't want them to find out, do you?"
""No!" He screeched the word, his voice breaking. He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth." - p 165
Yep, those were the days. At least people can be a little more openly gay these days so such blackmail is less likely to be effective. Of course, let's not get too happy here, right? There're still cases like Pittsburgh policemen David Sisak, Michael Saldutte, & Richard Ewing beating the shit out of black teenagerfor no good reason Jordan Miles in the all-too-recent 2010. The cops got financially penalized but did no time. The attorney who represented Ewing was quoted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as saying: "they'd do it all over again. They did nothing wrong. They have nothing to be ashamed of." Any civilian who beat a cop like they beat this kid wd probably be given life w/o parole or executed. There's no way they'd get off like these cops did. These are the days. Still, Lorna & Fred get married, demonstrating once again that opposites attract.
"So the dead hovered over my wife and me, solidifying their presence as Lorna and I lived on. For years we loved, and it was worth the price in sorrow that my blind ambition had exacted from me and so many others. For a long while I wanted nothing that I didn't have, and I was moved beyond movement by Lorna's willingness to give it to me." - p 201
I love a little romance, esp in my own life. Thank you, you know who.
The dead are definitely hovering over this novel. Given that I'd read Ellroy's My Dark Places about the murder of his mom when he was a kid, it was easy to see parallels to his actual life story & the fiction in Clandestine:
"NURSE FOUND MURDERED IN EL MONTE
Strangulation Death for Attractive Divorced Mother"
[..]
"one of the Scouts, Danny Johnson, age 12, thought he saw an arm poking out of a line of scrub that runs along the fence on the school's south side." - p 209
Ellroy's own mom was a divorcee living in El Monte. "Some kids found her." (p 3, My Dark Places).
""Marcella was such a good woman. A good mother, devoted to her son." Mrs. Hariis, 43, was divorced from her husband, William "Doc" Harris, several years ago. They have a nine-year-old son, who was spending the weekend with his father. When notified of the death, Harris (who has been eliminated as a suspect) said, "I have every hope the police will quickly catch my wife's killer." Nine-year-old Michael, distraught, is now living with his father in Los Angeles." - p 210, Clandestine
"Hallinen and Lawton quizzed Ellroy on his ex-wife's social life. He told them Jean was a secretive woman who kept things to herself. She lied when it suited her—and she was really 43, not the 37 she claimed. She was promiscuous and an alcoholic. Her son found her in bed with strange men on several occasions. Her recent move to El Monte could only be explained as a run from or run to some lowlife she was seeing." - p 13, My Dark Places
"The victim's son was pudgy, and tall for 10 years old. He was nervous—but did not appear in any way distraught." - p 12, My Dark Places
Ellroy was put into his father's care. The parallels go on & on. Ellroy's mom's murder was never solved.
""Well," he said, "she said the kid was gettin' into fights, and talkin' dirty . . . and . . . exposing himself to all the other little kids."" - p 215, Clandestine
"I was becoming quite a large kid. I was foulmouthed and spouted profane lingo on the schoolyard. My father's favorite expression was "Fuck you, Fritz." His favorite expletive was "cocksucker." I mimicked his language and reveled in it shock value.
"I was refining my Crazy Man Act. It kept me miserably lonely and sealed up in my own little head." - p 99, My Dark Places
James Ellroy's Clandestine
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - JUNE 6, 2017
Read the full review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
It's been a while since I read an Ellroy bk. I'd forgotten what a good writer he is. Take this 2nd paragraph of the Prologue as an example:
"Nostalgia victimizes the unknowing by instilling in them a desire for simplicity and innocence they can never achieve. The fifties weren't a more innocent time. The dark salients that govern life today were there then, only they were harder to find. That was why I was a cop, and why I chased women. Golf was no more than an island of purity, something I did exceedingly well. I could drive a golf ball three hundred yards. Golf was breathtaking cleanliness and simplicity." - p 1
Some people chase ambulances, some people chase women, women move slower.
"I breathed it all in, and gave what I hoped would pass for an ironic grin: "So you don't like cops," I said. "Big deal. Most people don't. Would you rather have anarchy? There's only one answer, Miss Weinberg. This is not the best of all possible worlds. We have to accept that, and get on with the administration of justice."" - p 30
Of course, these days there're plenty of people who, yes, wd rather have anarchy - & those who wdn't, for the most part, are only reacting to the term like a Pavlovian dog preconditioned to experience fear w/o having more than a very vague idea of what it is they're afraid of.
"Lorna did not relent. "I can't accept that, and I won't. You can't change human nature, but you can change the law. And you can weed out some of the sociopaths who carry badges and guns.
""For example, my father told me you were curious about that man who caddied for you today. I know about him. He's one of your victims. An attorney who's a member of this club once represented Dirt Road Dave in his suit against the Lose Angeles Police Department. During the Depression he had stolen some food from a grocery. Two policemen saw him do it and chased him, and when they finally caught him they were angry. They beat him unconscious with their billy clubs. Dave suffered internal hemorrhaging and almost died. He sustained irreparable brain damage. The A.C.L.U. sued your police department, and lost. Cops are above the law and can do what they please." - p 30
Now, I'm an anarchist &, unlike most anarchists I know, I don't hate cops. I think most of them are working class people who are in over their heads. Still, let's be realistic: the above story fits in w/ my idea of realism. I'll give a few relevant stories that explain why:
I had a friend whose brother was in the LA Police. One day my friend was at his parents' house when his brother came by w/ another policemen. They were joking about going out to "shoot cans. Afri-cans, Mexi-cans" Nyuk, nyuk. Black Panthers talked about the police as being like an occupying army in their neighborhoods. I think that's spot-on.
I had another friend who was a junkie poet. He was a nice guy, he probably resorted to some theft to support his habit. The police took a dislike to him. 2 cops cornered him in an alley & one of them systematically beat him w/ his billy club in the same spot on his stomach over & over again to cause internal organ damage &, thereby, shorten his life. He sued the police w/ the usual outcome of NADA police responsibility. I haven't seen the friend for decades. He's probably dead. He was a sensitive person who just cdn't make it in this society in the approved-of ways. If being a poet in this society got more respect he probably wdn't've had to resort to theft - but being a poet or most other types of creative person is undervalued to an extreme in this society.
Yet another friend of mine, of Mexican descent, was at a protest in California at a motel where illegal immigrants were being held for deportation. My friend was arrested & taken to jail where he was hog-tied (ie: w/ his hands tied behind his back to his feet) & beaten repeatedly on the soles of his feet so that he cdn't walk properly. That was torture. His mom reported this to Amnesty International who informed her that there is no torture in the US. They've since changed their tune.
I've sat in a courtrm before & witnessed a man sentenced to jail for stealing a piece of meat from a supermarket. The man was very skinny. My point is that if you're poor in this country there's a different set of laws & treatments for you than if you're rich. The police know that rich people have too many retaliatory resources AND that their actual purpose is to.. protect & serve THE RICH. They're a bodyguard pd for w/ public money, heaven forbid that the rich shd have to pay for anything.
For maybe the 1st 15 yrs that I had sex, from 1970 to 1985 - & more sporadically up 'til 1996 - the use of diaphragms was a common form of impregnation-prevention. This was preferable to birth-control pills b/c it didn't disrupt the biological cycle of the woman. Once fear-of-AIDS changed the whole dynamic of sex, the use of condoms started to dominate & diaphragms seemed to fall into disuse. I never really had a handle on when diaphragms were invented so it was interesting to find them in the 1951 of this novel:
"I pushed open the door. Maggie was starting to insert her diaphragm when she saw me. She jumped, startled and angry, into the bathtub, where she covered herself with the shower curtain.
""Bill;" she said, flushed. "Please, goddamnit, I'll just be a minute. Wait in the bedroom, honey. Please. I'll be right there."
""I just wanted to watch you, sweetheart," I said. "I wanted to help you with it."
"Maggie said nervously, "It's a private thing, Bill. A woman's thing. If you don't see me do it, then you don't really know it's there. It's better for you. Believe me, honey."" - p 38
Ah, humans & our complications. This was a one-nite stand. Can you imagine a cat-in-heat going thru this? [Cat steps into litter box & turns her back] "Meooooowweerr."
"Jack groaned and the old woman giggled as Wacky did his Frankenstein imitation, walking toward her slowly, arms extended, groaning deeply." - p 46
"232. Player-Belt Girdle Monster
- Neoista?! Puccs - Black Black Galéria & environs, (Buda)Pest, Hungary
- Monday, July 7th, 1997, 6PM
- Black Black Galéria is the gallery of Opál Színház (Opal Theater). It's in a complex of basements which was entered by stooping through a sidewalk-level window & walking down a sloping board laying on a sand pile. Large piles of sand were faintly visible off to the left when entering. At the bottom of the piles were 2 rooms. Off to the right off of the 1st room was the closed off entrance to living quarters. Off to the left of the 2nd room, 1 could walk through another awkward entrance down into another room where Amen! had an exhibit. At the end of this room was a cage that blocked entrance to a room beyond. This cage is reputed to've been lived in for 1 month by 1 of the main people of Opál Színház. I stayed mainly in the dim light on the sand piles off to the left when 1 entered - playing tapes with my Player Belt (see entries 212 & 217, etc..). Eventually, etta cetera, Brian Damage, Ghera & I ventured forth into the gypsy neighborhood - with the Player Belt playing my tapes all the while. Back in front of Black Black, the neighborhood people had gathered out of curiousity. My tape started playing loud steady explosive sounds & I began to walk stiffly with my feet hitting the pavement in sync with the sounds holding my arms out like the stereotypical zombie/monster. etta probably took something from me (like my flaming steam iron necklace) & I started pursuing her through the thick of the crowd. Children started laughing & pretending to be terrified & running frantically to get out of my way."
How did that get in there? I'm listening to Lambert, Hendricks & Ross's "Sing a Song of Basie" (recorded 1957 - a little late to be of the same period as the novel) as I wrote this. Thought you might like to know. 'Bill' insults his superior officer & pays the price, a transfer to an unglamorous & dangerous district:
"Wacky Walker never made it to Seventy-seventh Street Division, Watts, L.A.'s heart of darkness, but I did.
"Beckworth bided his time and in June, when Captain Larson retired, to muted fanfare, after thirty-three years on the job, I got my orders: Officer Frederick U. Underhill, 1647, to Seventy-seventh Street Division to fill manpower shortage.
"Which was a joke: the ranks at Seventy-seventh Street were swelled to bursting. The ancient red brick building that served the hottest per capita crime area in the city was painfully overstaffed with cops, and undersupplied with every crime-fighting provision from toilet paper to fingerprinting ink. There was a shortage of chairs, tables, floor space, lockers, soap, brooms, mops, and even writing implements. There was no shortage, however, of prisoners. There was an unsurpassed daily and nightly parade of burglars, purse snatchers, dope addicts, drunks, wife beaters, brawlers, pimps, hookers, perverts, and cranks." - p 65
I'm sure that Ellroy is well-read & researched on the eras he represents but this still seems daunting to me as a writerly task to try to accurately represent a place & time he doesn't have personal familiarity w/. It's 1951, & Ellroy has Underhill blackmailing a bartender for information b/c he's caught him w/ pot:
""Shut up. Listen to me. I'm interested in pickup artists—pussy-hounds, guys who score regular here. You help me out and I'll let you slide. You don't and I'll bust you. I'll call for a patrol car and tell the bulls you tried to sell me these three reefers. That's two to ten at Quentin. What's it gonna be?"" - p 83
Two to 10 at San Quentin prison for selling 3 joints. Those were the days. The days of ridiculous penalties for victimless crimes. The days when being gay meant hiding it to save yr life. Henry Cowell, major American composer & music theorist & publisher, etc, was imprisoned in San Quentin in 1936 w/ a 15 yr sentence for a "morals" charge. He wd've gotten out at the time this novel began if he'd served the full sentence, wch he didn't, he got out after 4 yrs.
I'd originally read that Cowell was busted in a sting operation for cruising in a park. Perhaps that story was circulated to generate more sympathy for him & for others like him. Wikipedia claims that having oral sex w/ a 17 yr old boy. I don't know wch story is true. Having been a 17 yr old boy in 1971 who hitch-hiked & got such offers fairly often I can truthfully say that saying no was all it took to prevent it from happening so I assume that the 17 yr old consented. At any rate, those were the days. The days when a major composer cd get sentenced to 15 yrs in prison b/c of his sexual activities. We're not talking Oscar Wilde in 1895, sentenced to 2 yrs hard labor for indecency, we're talking the 20th century.
""Don't thank me yet, Officer. You are a very gifted young man, but your arrogance supersedes your gifts. Arrogance cannot be tolerated in police officers; to tolerate it would be to promote anarchy. The Los Angeles Police Department is a superbly structured bureaucracy, one you have sworn allegiance to. Your actions have reviled the department. Know that, Underhill. Know that your ambition is threatening to kill you as a policeman. Do you understand me?"" - p 96
There they go, picking on anarchy again. What's so bad about thinking for yrself & sabotaging unjust institutions? Sheesh.
My 1st encounter of a close kind w/ Ellroy's work was upon witnessing the movie "L.A. Confidential". I loved it & thought it represented as great Film Noir made long after the 'classic' era for Noir. The Ellroy bk that the movie was based on was copyrighted in 1990, 8 yrs after Clandestine. Clandestine seems to hold the seeds of at least 3 later bks: L.A. Confidential, the Black Dahlia (1987), & My Dark Places (1996). The only bk that I've read by Ellroy earlier than Clandestine is Brown's Requiem (1981). Clandestine presages L.A. Confidential b/c it's got the brutal Lieutenant Dudley Smith in it taking a suspect to an abandoned motel & 'interrogating' him by beating the shit out of him until he gets a confession.
"Dudley Smith was a lieutenant in the homicide bureau, a fearsome personage and legendary cop who had killed five men in the line of duty. Irish-born and Los Angeles-raised, he still clung tenaciously to his high-pitched, musical brogue, which was as finely tuned as a Stradivarius. He often lectured at the academy on interrogation techniques, and I remembered how that brogue could be alternately soothing or brutal, inquisitive or dumbfounded, sympathetic or filled with pious rage." - p 97
Smith explains to Underhill something he did to try to discover who the Black Dahlia's killer was:
""Dick Carlisle and I snuck the stiff over to the warehouse late one night. I dyed her hair jet black, like the Dahlia's. I stripped her nude, and tied her ankles with a rope, and Dick and I hoisted her up feet first and hung her from a low ceiling beam. Then Dick went and got our eight degenerates from the Hall of Justice jail. We let them view her, one at a time, lad, with appropriate props. One scum was a knife man; he had scores of arrests for knife fighting. I handed him a butcher knife and made him slice the corpse. he could hardly do it. He didn't have it in him. Another filth was a child molester, recently paroled from Atascadero. His M.O. was asking little girls if he could kiss their private parts. I made him kiss the dead girl's private parts, smell that dead sex flesh up close. He couldn't do it. And on and on. I was looking for a reaction so vile, so unspeakable that I would know that this was the scum that killed Beth Short."" - p 125
It didn't work. I doubt that the above story is rooted in historical fact, it seems more likely to be rooted in Ellroy's lurid imagination. Maybe I'm wrong. Here's another story that seems more likely to be realistic:
"["]At five minutes of six we will kick in Eddie's door. We will subdue him, and put the fear of God into any colleen or homo who might be sharing his bed, then send them on their way. I have an interrogation place set up, an abandoned motel in Gardena. Freddy, Dick, Engels, and I will travel in my car. Mike will follow in his. This is apt to be a long interrogation, lads["]" - p 134
Think of the murders of Black Panthers Fred Hampton & Mark Clark (while they slept a drug-induced sleep as a result of downers put in their food by an undercover agent) by the police in Chicago in 1969 & you'll get a good idea of the way the police sometimes work.
In the meantime, Underhill is dating cop-critical legal eagle Lorna whose artistic taste we get a glimpse of:
"There was a Hieronymus Bosch painting that represented insanity—hysterical grotesque creatures in an undersea environment importuning God—or someone—for release from their madness. There was a Van Gogh job that featured flowery fields juxtaposed against brown grass and a somber sky. There was Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks"—three lonely people sitting in an all-night diner, not talking. It was awesome and filled with with lonely wonder." - p135
I share her tastes. At the same time that she's dating Underhill, however, he's being schooled by Smith. Dudley's techniques are do NOT appeal to Lorna's tastes:
""Eddie," I said, "do your parents know you're homosexual?"
""No."
""Do they know that Lillian is a lesbian?"
""No. Please!"
""You don't want them to find out, do you?"
""No!" He screeched the word, his voice breaking. He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth." - p 165
Yep, those were the days. At least people can be a little more openly gay these days so such blackmail is less likely to be effective. Of course, let's not get too happy here, right? There're still cases like Pittsburgh policemen David Sisak, Michael Saldutte, & Richard Ewing beating the shit out of black teenagerfor no good reason Jordan Miles in the all-too-recent 2010. The cops got financially penalized but did no time. The attorney who represented Ewing was quoted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as saying: "they'd do it all over again. They did nothing wrong. They have nothing to be ashamed of." Any civilian who beat a cop like they beat this kid wd probably be given life w/o parole or executed. There's no way they'd get off like these cops did. These are the days. Still, Lorna & Fred get married, demonstrating once again that opposites attract.
"So the dead hovered over my wife and me, solidifying their presence as Lorna and I lived on. For years we loved, and it was worth the price in sorrow that my blind ambition had exacted from me and so many others. For a long while I wanted nothing that I didn't have, and I was moved beyond movement by Lorna's willingness to give it to me." - p 201
I love a little romance, esp in my own life. Thank you, you know who.
The dead are definitely hovering over this novel. Given that I'd read Ellroy's My Dark Places about the murder of his mom when he was a kid, it was easy to see parallels to his actual life story & the fiction in Clandestine:
"NURSE FOUND MURDERED IN EL MONTE
Strangulation Death for Attractive Divorced Mother"
[..]
"one of the Scouts, Danny Johnson, age 12, thought he saw an arm poking out of a line of scrub that runs along the fence on the school's south side." - p 209
Ellroy's own mom was a divorcee living in El Monte. "Some kids found her." (p 3, My Dark Places).
""Marcella was such a good woman. A good mother, devoted to her son." Mrs. Hariis, 43, was divorced from her husband, William "Doc" Harris, several years ago. They have a nine-year-old son, who was spending the weekend with his father. When notified of the death, Harris (who has been eliminated as a suspect) said, "I have every hope the police will quickly catch my wife's killer." Nine-year-old Michael, distraught, is now living with his father in Los Angeles." - p 210, Clandestine
"Hallinen and Lawton quizzed Ellroy on his ex-wife's social life. He told them Jean was a secretive woman who kept things to herself. She lied when it suited her—and she was really 43, not the 37 she claimed. She was promiscuous and an alcoholic. Her son found her in bed with strange men on several occasions. Her recent move to El Monte could only be explained as a run from or run to some lowlife she was seeing." - p 13, My Dark Places
"The victim's son was pudgy, and tall for 10 years old. He was nervous—but did not appear in any way distraught." - p 12, My Dark Places
Ellroy was put into his father's care. The parallels go on & on. Ellroy's mom's murder was never solved.
""Well," he said, "she said the kid was gettin' into fights, and talkin' dirty . . . and . . . exposing himself to all the other little kids."" - p 215, Clandestine
"I was becoming quite a large kid. I was foulmouthed and spouted profane lingo on the schoolyard. My father's favorite expression was "Fuck you, Fritz." His favorite expletive was "cocksucker." I mimicked his language and reveled in it shock value.
"I was refining my Crazy Man Act. It kept me miserably lonely and sealed up in my own little head." - p 99, My Dark Places
April 29, 2025
I first read this book probably more than a decade ago and it was the book that introduced me to Ellroy. This far on, it was a nostalgia trip that reminded me why he is my favourite author.
The first time, I read this as a precursor to starting the LA Quartet, whereas this time, I made a point of inserting it in it’s logical chronological position in the LA Quartet between The Big Nowhere and LA Confidential, bang in the middle of the series. I’m glad I did because reading this whilst already having been introduced to the likes of Dudley Smith and Mike Breuning I believe added valuable context to their involvement in this story.
You can tell this was one of Ellroy’s earliest works, especially having read The Big Nowhere prior to this, because Ellroy’s prose is very raw and somewhat less refined, but by all means, it doesn’t take away from the story, with the strands of the story being expertly linked from start to finish.
This was a lovely return to reading comfort in a way, and it has increased my excitement to dive into the two LA Quartet books I have never previously cracked the spine of before. Highly recommend.
The first time, I read this as a precursor to starting the LA Quartet, whereas this time, I made a point of inserting it in it’s logical chronological position in the LA Quartet between The Big Nowhere and LA Confidential, bang in the middle of the series. I’m glad I did because reading this whilst already having been introduced to the likes of Dudley Smith and Mike Breuning I believe added valuable context to their involvement in this story.
You can tell this was one of Ellroy’s earliest works, especially having read The Big Nowhere prior to this, because Ellroy’s prose is very raw and somewhat less refined, but by all means, it doesn’t take away from the story, with the strands of the story being expertly linked from start to finish.
This was a lovely return to reading comfort in a way, and it has increased my excitement to dive into the two LA Quartet books I have never previously cracked the spine of before. Highly recommend.
July 25, 2023
Starts simply enough but then becomes a complicated whirl of jumble.
October 14, 2015
My first Ellroy book, and it won't be my last but I wasn't very intrigued by this one.
***SPOILERS BELOW***
The main character is something of a cipher and mishmash, at first an ambitious good guy but later like a younger Dudley Smith himself without much transitional explanation. Too many characters are too similar both in name and traits. The nine year-old(!) child who nearly looked like a man and acted like a perverted teenage delinquent, what was up with that? Why did our hero "fall in love" with this scary kid? The story lost my interest in the second half when it got into such long winded family history about one of the murder victims. And I didn't buy that Lorna allowed herself to be swept up again at the end.
I'm not a mystery buff so perhaps I don't have the reading chops required for the genre, but I just became lost plot-wise trying to keep track of all the characters and what they were all supposed to have done. Justice is served at the climax, but its secrecy bugged me and that it didn't redeem our hero with the public or the LAPD.
***SPOILERS BELOW***
The main character is something of a cipher and mishmash, at first an ambitious good guy but later like a younger Dudley Smith himself without much transitional explanation. Too many characters are too similar both in name and traits. The nine year-old(!) child who nearly looked like a man and acted like a perverted teenage delinquent, what was up with that? Why did our hero "fall in love" with this scary kid? The story lost my interest in the second half when it got into such long winded family history about one of the murder victims. And I didn't buy that Lorna allowed herself to be swept up again at the end.
I'm not a mystery buff so perhaps I don't have the reading chops required for the genre, but I just became lost plot-wise trying to keep track of all the characters and what they were all supposed to have done. Justice is served at the climax, but its secrecy bugged me and that it didn't redeem our hero with the public or the LAPD.
June 26, 2019
First 1/3 was interesting. Had a sense of purpose and style but once they begin the SPOILER interrogation scene it takes a nose dive and gets worse and worse to the point where the style becomes irritating and the narrative decisions are strange...a family history of a character? Letters from another character? It must have been easy to get published back in the 80s!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 17, 2025
Noir-vember 2025 continues with...James Ellroy's 2nd novel, Clandestine (1982, 433 pgs., Kindle, $4.99), while not consistent, is overall an excellent read. The first half of the book absolutely kicks ass...The story follows LAPD cop Freddy Underhill who has two goals, be the very best policeman he can be...and...bed woman! Death on the L.A. streets propels Underhill's career to the rank of a Detective where he sniffs out a serial killer. His hard work leads to an arrest...but...in steps the most-evil Detective Dudley Smith (who is introduced for the first time in Ellroy's LAPD books) and all goes to shit for Fred Underhill who gets fired. The second half of the book gears down from all the action but it is quite interesting. I swear in this portion Ellroy emulates the writing of Ross MacDonald where he twists family-ties and the past back in Wisconsin, and brings it back to the present in LA. This is all done by Fred Underhill investigating (much like Lew Archer) and leads to a very satisfying conclusion where all is tied up at the end...I found Clandestine to be a very easy read and it moved right along...It's now entered as one of my top tiered Ellroy books along with The Big Nowhere, Blood's A Rover, and My Dark Places...Highly recommended...4.0 outta 5.0....
Read
June 5, 2024LA noir for the MasterCard generation (1982). This guy (Ellroy)’s biggest achievement was writing a book that became an Academy award-winning movie. Is this a book or a movie? You decide.
Compared to Raymond Chandler, he’s writing laundry tickets, but if you swallow hard and squint, it’s okay.
An excellent book to read while doing the laundry.
The title makes no sense. I think Ellroy just wanted to produce a book with that name.
Opening at random:
‘Lorna gave herself a shove and almost toppled over. I moved to steady her and she swatted at me clumsily with her cane. “No, goddamn you,” she hissed. “I won’t be charmed one more time. I won’t let you beat up my friends and I won’t take you back.”’
Compared to Raymond Chandler, he’s writing laundry tickets, but if you swallow hard and squint, it’s okay.
An excellent book to read while doing the laundry.
The title makes no sense. I think Ellroy just wanted to produce a book with that name.
Opening at random:
‘Lorna gave herself a shove and almost toppled over. I moved to steady her and she swatted at me clumsily with her cane. “No, goddamn you,” she hissed. “I won’t be charmed one more time. I won’t let you beat up my friends and I won’t take you back.”’
December 5, 2018
An uneven but still compelling early entry from Ellroy's bibliography. As with his debut novel, this flashes his unmatched ability to create characters that captivate and disturb, even when you somehow find yourself liking them.
The only issue with these early novels is it feels like he lets plot get in the way of his amazing characterizations. Which happens near the end of this novel, unfortunately. But despite a rough 30 page section near the end, he still brings it all home in a completely satisfying manner.
The only issue with these early novels is it feels like he lets plot get in the way of his amazing characterizations. Which happens near the end of this novel, unfortunately. But despite a rough 30 page section near the end, he still brings it all home in a completely satisfying manner.
February 20, 2023
This book has murder, sex, violence, and of course cops as most of his stories contain. I thought the ending was a little weak, but without writing spoilers, I will say it is worth the read, but this wasn't as good as his other books.
March 1, 2021
Much more intricately plotted than your average thriller or mystery, this novel tells the story of an ambitious LAPD officer who falls in with the wrong crowd and then fights to regain his honor.
October 23, 2021
4.5 —> James Ellroy with another book that not only keeps you entertained, but makes you believe you are in old school L.A. - Great read
February 14, 2022
Ich persönlich finde es fantastisch, dass Ullstein das Frühwerk von Krimi-Großmeister James Ellroy jetzt wieder neu aufgelegt hat. Denn gerade der (verdiente) Erfolg seines L.A.-Quartetts lenkt ja gerne mal von seinen anderen Werken ab, beziehungsweise stellt sie in den Schatten. Wobei Ellroys Frühwerk meiner Meinung nach einen besonderen Stellenwert hat. Denn der Autor ist hier quasi noch in der stilistischen Findungsphase. Seine dichte, grenzenüberschreitende, oft schon vor Spannung splitternde Sprache findet man hier noch nicht. Auch nicht in seinem zweiten Roman “Heimlich”, der zunächst einmal ganz klassisch einer Hardboiled-Story folgt. Nämlich in der Ich-Perspektive von Streifenpolizist Fred Underhill, der gemeinsam mit seinem Partner in den 1950er-Jahren dem “Wunder” frönt. Also dem täglichen Polizeiwahnsinn in den Gassen von Los Angeles - wenn er denn nicht gerade Golf spielt oder Frauen abschleppt.
Macho-Gehabe gehört hier also zum guten Ton. Ebenso wie Verbal-Rassismus und eine gehörige Portion Frauenverachtung. Für mich persönlich was das ein Schippchen zu viel - und genau der Grund, warum ich von Hardboiled-Krimis inzwischen eigentlich die Finger lasse.
Die Geschichte rund um Fred Underhill plätschert ruppig-markant vor sich hin. Gut, aber eben noch nicht Ellroy in Hochform. Doch dann passiert etwas Erstaunliches. Nämlich Dudley Smith. Genau der Dudley Smith, der im L.A.-Quartett später das Sinnbild des verkommenen und korrupten Bullen bei Ellroy sein wird. Eine grandiose Figur! Und siehe da: plötzlich gewinnt “Heimlich” eine enorme Intensität, bekommt Abgründe, Grautöne und eine Menge Seelenschatten. Hier zeigt Ellroy also bereits, wofür er später so bewundert werden wird. Atemberaubend gut. Nur leider nicht von Dauer. Denn Dudley trägt nun mal nicht den Plot, sondern ist eine reine Nebenfigur, die die Geschichte auch irgendwann wieder verlässt. Die Folge: der schlichte Hardboiled übernimmt wieder. Und trotzdem. Ellroy legt hier alles an, was ihn später in den Krimi-Olymp katapultiert. Wenn man sich für die Entwicklung eines Autors interessiert, ist “Heimlich” - trotz aller Schwächen - ein Freudenfest.
#Heimlich wurde mir von #NetGalleyDE als Rezensionsexemplar zur Verfügung gestellt.
Macho-Gehabe gehört hier also zum guten Ton. Ebenso wie Verbal-Rassismus und eine gehörige Portion Frauenverachtung. Für mich persönlich was das ein Schippchen zu viel - und genau der Grund, warum ich von Hardboiled-Krimis inzwischen eigentlich die Finger lasse.
Die Geschichte rund um Fred Underhill plätschert ruppig-markant vor sich hin. Gut, aber eben noch nicht Ellroy in Hochform. Doch dann passiert etwas Erstaunliches. Nämlich Dudley Smith. Genau der Dudley Smith, der im L.A.-Quartett später das Sinnbild des verkommenen und korrupten Bullen bei Ellroy sein wird. Eine grandiose Figur! Und siehe da: plötzlich gewinnt “Heimlich” eine enorme Intensität, bekommt Abgründe, Grautöne und eine Menge Seelenschatten. Hier zeigt Ellroy also bereits, wofür er später so bewundert werden wird. Atemberaubend gut. Nur leider nicht von Dauer. Denn Dudley trägt nun mal nicht den Plot, sondern ist eine reine Nebenfigur, die die Geschichte auch irgendwann wieder verlässt. Die Folge: der schlichte Hardboiled übernimmt wieder. Und trotzdem. Ellroy legt hier alles an, was ihn später in den Krimi-Olymp katapultiert. Wenn man sich für die Entwicklung eines Autors interessiert, ist “Heimlich” - trotz aller Schwächen - ein Freudenfest.
#Heimlich wurde mir von #NetGalleyDE als Rezensionsexemplar zur Verfügung gestellt.
January 26, 2014
The fact that this took me over a year to read is likely indicative of something. I'd been wanting to read Ellroy since seeing LA Confidential, and maybe I should have held out for a copy of that.
I really liked the first half of the novel, and the cop who finds that his need for justice is too constrained by the police department. This is the formula that gives you Batman. It's also the formula that gives you Magneto. There's a dangerous line, and unlike many vigilante stories this one admits the line is there. Also, our female character is allowed some spunk, rather like Vivian in the Big Sleep.
Our boy Underhill gets burned, and gets tossed off the force, and... it feels like around there the story loses traction. He loses none of his intensity, just his direction. And then we got to the infodump, flashback thirty or forty years, and I found myself lacking the interest to pick the book up for six months.
When you get to the end of the story, loose ends get tied. (I think. See 'six months'.) Damage done is not *entirely* washed away, but it's still a happy ending, for a gritty book about the dirty underbelly of L.A. in the fifties.
And that's one of the things that Ellroy is good at, and that kept me reading. The descriptions, of the places and the people and the attitudes and the culture, felt real, like the sting of gravel and the ache of impact when you fall on your hands in a parking lot off Sepulveda. And that's worth three stars right there.
I really liked the first half of the novel, and the cop who finds that his need for justice is too constrained by the police department. This is the formula that gives you Batman. It's also the formula that gives you Magneto. There's a dangerous line, and unlike many vigilante stories this one admits the line is there. Also, our female character is allowed some spunk, rather like Vivian in the Big Sleep.
Our boy Underhill gets burned, and gets tossed off the force, and... it feels like around there the story loses traction. He loses none of his intensity, just his direction. And then we got to the infodump, flashback thirty or forty years, and I found myself lacking the interest to pick the book up for six months.
When you get to the end of the story, loose ends get tied. (I think. See 'six months'.) Damage done is not *entirely* washed away, but it's still a happy ending, for a gritty book about the dirty underbelly of L.A. in the fifties.
And that's one of the things that Ellroy is good at, and that kept me reading. The descriptions, of the places and the people and the attitudes and the culture, felt real, like the sting of gravel and the ache of impact when you fall on your hands in a parking lot off Sepulveda. And that's worth three stars right there.
June 5, 2023
Clandestine by James Ellroy
BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: Available – (Bib info from Amazon website) COPYRIGHT: [Per Amazon, original copyright is 1982] February 16, 2021, Vintage Reprint; ISBN-978-0593312223; PUBLISHER: Vintage Books; LENGTH: 448 pgs.
-Digital: (Bib info from Amazon website) COPYRIGHT: Vintage (February 16, 2021) ([Kindle]; PUBLISHER: Vintage; PAGES: 429; File size 2334 KB
*Audio: (Info from Libby) COPYRIGHT: 4-March-2013; PUBLISHER: HighBridge Audio; DURATION: approx. 12 hours; Unabridged (LAPL MP3)
-FILM or TV: No
AWARDS: [Per Amazon] Edgar Award nomination from Mystery Writers of America in 1982.
SERIES: Mysterious Press-Highbridge Audio Classics
CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Frederick Upton (Freddy) Underhill -
Herbert Lawton (Wacky) Walker -LAPD Detective
William (Loot) Beckworth – LAPD Lieutenant
Dudley Smith – LAPD Lieutenant (Homicide division)
Eddie Engels – An individual in a case
Sid Weinberg – Movie Producer
Siddel Weinberg – Sid’s daughter
Lorna Weinberg – Sid’s daughter
Maggie Cadwallader – A conquest
Marcella Harris – A victim
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-Selection: Don (husband) and I attended a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (4/22/2023, USC) consisting of Michael Connelly and James Ellroy. We were there to listen to Michael Connelly, not realizing his role was as Interviewer. We were surprised at what we judged to be a turn of events, with the focus on Mr. Ellroy. As we listened, we eventually learned that this fellow had written the “Black Dahlia” and other novels with equally recognizable titles. Our desire to discover another good author was piqued, all-be-it, warry. This fellow is quite a character, unashamed of vulgar gestures to demonstrate, rather than say, that someone is full of themselves. Anyway, much of the audience was actually there for this author, and we decided we should try at least one novel. The first one held our interest, so we tried this second one.
-About: A young rookie cop with a vice for picking up women in bars, or anywhere, investigates the murders of a couple of young women suspecting a single killer of both. Trying to navigate the political waters of the police department, while clinging to the cases he thinks he has an inside track on, and wants credit for solving, gets him in over his head. Peppered with 50’s colloquialisms.
-Liked: Well-developed characters; personable protagonist; somewhat complex plot; occasional unfamiliar vocabulary; Time and location.
-Disliked: Protagonist’s flaws (not to say he shouldn't have any); It seemed long, but I couldn’t say what to cut, so perhaps not. The tone of this novel may be true to life, with the brutality of the police being on a par with that of the criminals, but I’m not fond of it.
Overall: There was enough to like about this novel to keep us (Hubby and I) on track (reading in the chronological order that Ellroy wrote) at least up to the Black Dahlia—we’ve got several novels to go before we get to that one.
AUTHOR:
Lee Earle “James” Ellroy:
(Excerpt from Amazon): “James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the acclaimed L.A. Qurtet - The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz, as well as the Underworld USA trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover. He is the author of one work of non-fiction, The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.[3].”
NARRATOR(S):
William Roberts
(From AudioBookStore) “William Roberts’ theater appearances include Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird. Among his films are Cold Mountain and Death Wish III, while he has been seen on television in Martin Chuzzlewit and The Old Devils. An accomplished voice artist, he is a frequent narrator of audiobooks and has received an AudioFile Earphones Award.”
Although William sounded a bit more mature than the lead character’s age, I thought he had the perfect voice and delivery for this novel.
GENRE: Thriller; Fiction; Mystery; Crime; Noir
SUBJECTS: Golf; Disability; Police misconduct; Criminals; Criminal Investigations; Prejudice; Murder; Dive bars; Alcohol; Drugs
LOCATION(S): Los Angeles, California; Wilshire Station; Tijuana, Mexico; Wisconsin
TIME(S) 1951
DEDICATION: “To Penny Nagler”
EXCERPT: From: “Chapter 3”
“I figured that Wacky would be at least two hours late returning my car, and moreover that good taste dictated I remain to drink and shoot the shit with Big Sid. I wanted to take a run to Santa Barbara and look for women, but I needed my car for that.
I showered in the men’s locker room. It was a far cry from the dungeonlike locker room at the Wilshire Station. This facility had wall-to-wall carpets and oak walls hung with portraits of Hill-crest notables. The locker room talk was about movie deals, and business mergers with golf a distant third. Somehow it made me uneasy, so I showered fast, changed clothes, and went looking for Big Sid.
I found him in the dining room, sitting at a table near the large picture window overlooking the eighteenth hole. He was talking with a woman; she had her back to me as I approached the table. Somehow I sensed she was class, so I smoothed my hair and adjusted my pocket handkerchief as I walked toward them.
Big Sid saw me coming. “Freddy, baby!” he boomed. He tapped the woman softly on the shoulder. “Honey, this is my new golf partner, Freddy Underhill. Freddy, this is my daughter Lorna.
The woman swiveled in her chair to face me. She smiled distractedly. “Mr. Underhill,” she said.
“Miss Weinberg,” I replied.
I sat down. I was right: the woman was class. Where Siddel Weinberg had inherited the broadness of her father’s features, Lorna exhibited a refined version: her hair was more light brown than red, her brown eyes more pale and crystalline than opaque. She had Big Sid’s pointed chin and sensual mouth, but on a softer, muted scale. Her nose was large but beautiful: it informed her face with intelligence and a certain boldness. She wore no makeup. She had on a tweed suit over a white silk blouse. I could tell that she was tall and slender, and that her breasts were very large for her frame.”
RATING:
3.5 stars
STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
5/22/23 to 6/3/23
BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: Available – (Bib info from Amazon website) COPYRIGHT: [Per Amazon, original copyright is 1982] February 16, 2021, Vintage Reprint; ISBN-978-0593312223; PUBLISHER: Vintage Books; LENGTH: 448 pgs.
-Digital: (Bib info from Amazon website) COPYRIGHT: Vintage (February 16, 2021) ([Kindle]; PUBLISHER: Vintage; PAGES: 429; File size 2334 KB
*Audio: (Info from Libby) COPYRIGHT: 4-March-2013; PUBLISHER: HighBridge Audio; DURATION: approx. 12 hours; Unabridged (LAPL MP3)
-FILM or TV: No
AWARDS: [Per Amazon] Edgar Award nomination from Mystery Writers of America in 1982.
SERIES: Mysterious Press-Highbridge Audio Classics
CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Frederick Upton (Freddy) Underhill -
Herbert Lawton (Wacky) Walker -LAPD Detective
William (Loot) Beckworth – LAPD Lieutenant
Dudley Smith – LAPD Lieutenant (Homicide division)
Eddie Engels – An individual in a case
Sid Weinberg – Movie Producer
Siddel Weinberg – Sid’s daughter
Lorna Weinberg – Sid’s daughter
Maggie Cadwallader – A conquest
Marcella Harris – A victim
SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-Selection: Don (husband) and I attended a panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (4/22/2023, USC) consisting of Michael Connelly and James Ellroy. We were there to listen to Michael Connelly, not realizing his role was as Interviewer. We were surprised at what we judged to be a turn of events, with the focus on Mr. Ellroy. As we listened, we eventually learned that this fellow had written the “Black Dahlia” and other novels with equally recognizable titles. Our desire to discover another good author was piqued, all-be-it, warry. This fellow is quite a character, unashamed of vulgar gestures to demonstrate, rather than say, that someone is full of themselves. Anyway, much of the audience was actually there for this author, and we decided we should try at least one novel. The first one held our interest, so we tried this second one.
-About: A young rookie cop with a vice for picking up women in bars, or anywhere, investigates the murders of a couple of young women suspecting a single killer of both. Trying to navigate the political waters of the police department, while clinging to the cases he thinks he has an inside track on, and wants credit for solving, gets him in over his head. Peppered with 50’s colloquialisms.
-Liked: Well-developed characters; personable protagonist; somewhat complex plot; occasional unfamiliar vocabulary; Time and location.
-Disliked: Protagonist’s flaws (not to say he shouldn't have any); It seemed long, but I couldn’t say what to cut, so perhaps not. The tone of this novel may be true to life, with the brutality of the police being on a par with that of the criminals, but I’m not fond of it.
Overall: There was enough to like about this novel to keep us (Hubby and I) on track (reading in the chronological order that Ellroy wrote) at least up to the Black Dahlia—we’ve got several novels to go before we get to that one.
AUTHOR:
Lee Earle “James” Ellroy:
(Excerpt from Amazon): “James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the acclaimed L.A. Qurtet - The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz, as well as the Underworld USA trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover. He is the author of one work of non-fiction, The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.[3].”
NARRATOR(S):
William Roberts
(From AudioBookStore) “William Roberts’ theater appearances include Of Mice and Men and To Kill a Mockingbird. Among his films are Cold Mountain and Death Wish III, while he has been seen on television in Martin Chuzzlewit and The Old Devils. An accomplished voice artist, he is a frequent narrator of audiobooks and has received an AudioFile Earphones Award.”
Although William sounded a bit more mature than the lead character’s age, I thought he had the perfect voice and delivery for this novel.
GENRE: Thriller; Fiction; Mystery; Crime; Noir
SUBJECTS: Golf; Disability; Police misconduct; Criminals; Criminal Investigations; Prejudice; Murder; Dive bars; Alcohol; Drugs
LOCATION(S): Los Angeles, California; Wilshire Station; Tijuana, Mexico; Wisconsin
TIME(S) 1951
DEDICATION: “To Penny Nagler”
EXCERPT: From: “Chapter 3”
“I figured that Wacky would be at least two hours late returning my car, and moreover that good taste dictated I remain to drink and shoot the shit with Big Sid. I wanted to take a run to Santa Barbara and look for women, but I needed my car for that.
I showered in the men’s locker room. It was a far cry from the dungeonlike locker room at the Wilshire Station. This facility had wall-to-wall carpets and oak walls hung with portraits of Hill-crest notables. The locker room talk was about movie deals, and business mergers with golf a distant third. Somehow it made me uneasy, so I showered fast, changed clothes, and went looking for Big Sid.
I found him in the dining room, sitting at a table near the large picture window overlooking the eighteenth hole. He was talking with a woman; she had her back to me as I approached the table. Somehow I sensed she was class, so I smoothed my hair and adjusted my pocket handkerchief as I walked toward them.
Big Sid saw me coming. “Freddy, baby!” he boomed. He tapped the woman softly on the shoulder. “Honey, this is my new golf partner, Freddy Underhill. Freddy, this is my daughter Lorna.
The woman swiveled in her chair to face me. She smiled distractedly. “Mr. Underhill,” she said.
“Miss Weinberg,” I replied.
I sat down. I was right: the woman was class. Where Siddel Weinberg had inherited the broadness of her father’s features, Lorna exhibited a refined version: her hair was more light brown than red, her brown eyes more pale and crystalline than opaque. She had Big Sid’s pointed chin and sensual mouth, but on a softer, muted scale. Her nose was large but beautiful: it informed her face with intelligence and a certain boldness. She wore no makeup. She had on a tweed suit over a white silk blouse. I could tell that she was tall and slender, and that her breasts were very large for her frame.”
RATING:
3.5 stars
STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
5/22/23 to 6/3/23
December 8, 2010
In an interview with Paris Review in 2009, James Ellroy said “If you’re confused about something in one of my books, you’ve just got to realize, Ellroy’s a master, and if I’m not following it, it’s my problem.”
He is indeed a master. His beautiful, lyrical writing of brutal and dark subjects is inspiring. I read this book many years ago and now have re-read it. It tells the story of a young ambitious policeman in Los Angeles who suspects a serial killer is at work in the deaths of two women. In trying to uncover the links he finds that he enemies within the police force and on the streets.
There is a swag of interesting characters all revolving around a spiritual mastermind revealed toward the end of the book. The story retells aspects of Ellroy’s own life and one suspects that the description of the troubled child orphaned by murder, but neglected well before this event is a description of Ellroy as a child.
A theme of this story is seeking to capture the “wonder”, that is the mystery of life. Different methods of pursuit are explored – women, jazz, poetry, alcohol, even death. It is this wonder that Ellroy conveys so beautifully as he writes about murder and mayhem.
He is indeed a master. His beautiful, lyrical writing of brutal and dark subjects is inspiring. I read this book many years ago and now have re-read it. It tells the story of a young ambitious policeman in Los Angeles who suspects a serial killer is at work in the deaths of two women. In trying to uncover the links he finds that he enemies within the police force and on the streets.
There is a swag of interesting characters all revolving around a spiritual mastermind revealed toward the end of the book. The story retells aspects of Ellroy’s own life and one suspects that the description of the troubled child orphaned by murder, but neglected well before this event is a description of Ellroy as a child.
A theme of this story is seeking to capture the “wonder”, that is the mystery of life. Different methods of pursuit are explored – women, jazz, poetry, alcohol, even death. It is this wonder that Ellroy conveys so beautifully as he writes about murder and mayhem.
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