(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

Los Angeles, December 6, 1941. Last hopes for peace are shattered when Japanese squadrons bomb Pearl Harbor. War fever and race hate grip the city and the internment of Japanese-Americans begins.
Following the hellish murder of a Japanese family, three men and one woman are summoned. William H. Parker is a captain on the Los Angeles Police. He's superbly gifted, corrosively ambitious and consumed by dubious ideology. He is bitterly at odds with Sergeant Dudley Smith - Irish émigré, ex-IRA killer and fledgling war profiteer. Kay Lake is a 21-year-old dilettante looking for adventure. Hideo Ashida is a brilliant police chemist and the only Japanese on the payroll.
Four driven souls - rivals, lovers, history's pawns - thrown into an investigation which will not only rip them apart but take America to the edge of the abyss at a crucial moment in its history.

A brilliant story, set in LA after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Tensions are high in the city and Japanese-Americans are being locked up following the bombing. Then a Japanese family is murdered and a group of crack investigators come together - not altogether willingly - to solve it.

There is always something about Ellroy's books that stand out. Either the short, sharp sentences that bring action and immediacy to the narrative, or it is his characterisations that really make the characters jump from the page and into your minds' eye. Sometimes it is his way of evoking the gritty side of a city, in this case Los Angeles.

All of these things are true here.

The only thing that really took me down a notch in reviewing this was the time frame. Usually, a James Ellroy novel evolves over a period of months - this one was just a matter of weeks and there were so many characters and story-arcs, it doesn't feel a little "squished up", even though the story is over 700 pages. It's not an "I'm never going to read him again" problem, just one that bothered me a little and think was worth mentioning.

Overall, though, a really solid and worthwhile investment of your time. What more can one say?


Paul
ARH