L.A. Confidential

⚖The case for it

Three LAPD detectives in 1950s Los Angeles become entangled in a conspiracy reaching to the top of the city's power structure. Ellroy's staccato prose (headlines made flesh) captures the violent pathology of American power. The LA Quartet is his masterwork; this is its crown.

— the canon

✕The case against

Ellroy's telegraphic style began as a page-count fix and hardened into mannerism; whole chapters read like a police blotter having a seizure. The plot needs a corkboard and string, the women are corpses or call girls styled as movie stars, and the period slurs arrive by the bucket. Authentic to its cops, certainly. Spending 500 pages in their skulls is the cost.

— the honest librarian