C.T. Phipps > Recent Status Updates

Pretty good installment of the series but I wish they'd move past Sophia as a villain. She's the least interesting of all of MK Gibson's villains.

The wonderful story of Jackson Blackwell trapped in a YA villains academy is the second best deconstruction of the trope I've read since the Scholmance. Just with a lot more sex jokes.

A deep discussion of Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher."

Oh dear, Jackson is now a twelve year old boy and everyone has lost their powers.

Oh no, Jackson Blackwell is trapped in a YA novel!

I love these characters and am very sad there's only one book with them.

Joshua Reynolds style is fun and quite enjoyable. I'm disappointed this is a one off.

One of the gunmen is named "Phipps." I'm wondering if this is an homage to me. I mean, normally I wouldn't think so but I *HAVE* written quite a lot of Cthulhu Mythos fiction.

The feeling of the book is incredibly Pulpy and fun, which is not normally how I would treat Call of Cthulhu/Arkham Horror but works here dramatically well.

I really like the fact the protagonist is a Catwoman-meets-Lara Croft esque adventuress and her companion in Pepper the female taxi cab driver. They have great chemistry as companions.

I'm really excited by this book because I've always wanted a kind of Dungeons and Dragons fiction version of Mythos fiction. Sort of a Dragonlance to the Call of Cthulhu game. Arkham Horror looks like it just might be this.

The stream of consciousness way the book is written really hurts my enjoyment of the book. It doesn't help that David Klein is such a scummy asshole. Weirdly, Glenda is a much better character and would have been a better protagonist.

I'm getting real annoyed with the stream of consciousness style of the book. It's just not very enjoyable to be in David Klein's head versus Bleichert, Meeks, or Exley.

David Klein really is a horrible racist. I mean, a particularly repulsive version too. I think he's worse than Dudley Smith. On the other hand, the Mickey Cohen funded sci-fi movie stuff is hilarious. James Ellroy really hates Howard Hughes too.

I'm not feeling this one like James Ellroy's other novels. David Klein is the biggest piece of shit among all of James' antiheroes and that's saying something. The prose is also incredibly stilted and lacking the usual flourishes, which I understand was at the insistence of his publisher.

It's interesting to see the three cops immediately drop their incredibly powerful grudges against one another when Dudley Smith's corruption becomes involved. I'm not sure I buy it that they're all so dedicated to justice that they can work together.

A lot of characters accuse Exley of being a coward and Bud White being a hero as well as real man. But there's an interesting implication Exley is willing to burn everything to the ground while Bud's claims of being a hero to women is only thin skinned.

Inez Soto is a character I regret we didn't get much more development from in the movie as she's a fascinating character here. What she does to Exley is awful and hurtful but I don't blame her. Except I kind of do. She cheats for years on a man she knows hates her husband and vice versa.

The book has a much longer and more interesting look at the lives of Exley, Jack Vincennes, and Bud White. We're following events across much of the early 50s rather than just a single few months. Its interesting to see them settle into domesticity.

There's a lot of humor in the fact that the name of the young prostitute that Bud White befriends is named Kathy Janeway.

The Nite Owl killings are tied together with the frame-up job but it's more clearly something motivated by racism and even then the cops quickly ditch the idea. I'm more interested in the character of Jack Vincennes who is a far deeper as well as, oddly enough, more repellent character than the one in the movie.

The opening Christmas Riot was a lot more involved than in the movie and plays a much bigger role. Exley is a lot more calculating but also a lot more unsure this time around. It's also interesting they combined Exley's dad and Dudley Smith in this book.

It's interesting how the book is already different from the movie. Exley's father being alive being the first major change. We also have an epilogue to THE BIG NOWHERE that establishes what a bad dude that Dudley Smith was where it was more of a surprise in the film.

I really love how even when our protagonist plan to do the right thing and achieve redemption, they end up cutting a deal with the communist leader because it will benefit them personally.

Watching the story start to reach its climax is like a slow moving train crash. I'm surprisingly most interested in how the divorce case moves out as the protagonist is such an awful piece of shit but you also get his feelings towards his kid are sincere.

Getting Danny Upshaw, the closeted gay man, to seduce Claire de Haven is a hilarious twist. Of course the other options are a spouse abuser (who actually does like her) and the human tire fire that is Buzz Meeks. Kind of fascinating.

The revelation Danny Upshaw is a closeted gay man was something I expected but works well in the story, especially as the rest of his fellow police officers are finally cluing in. Sadly, I don't see a good ending for him.

Our three protagonists are now on the anti-communist squad and each for their own reasons. I'm not sure what to make of it so far as I doubt James Ellroy would give any credence to the actual efforts to fight communism in Hollywood but it as a wild goose chase doesn't feel like it would make for exciting writing either.

Mal Considine is a character that I think has rapidly shot to being the worst of the antiheroes present in the book. His spousal abuse of a Holocaust victim is pretty much as absolutely irredeemable as a character can get. I think James Ellroy expected us to believe Celeste was telling the truth about her Nazi "lover" but I don't believe that is likely.

The book is focused on two interesting period-appropriate elements with anti-communism (and the fact that actually fighting Soviet agents was immaterial to its use as a reactionary witch hunt) and the Sleepy Lagoon murder. Throwing in the seiral murder of gay men with it feels like this has perhaps one plot too many.