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Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy
Book Summary InformationAuthor: James Ellroy Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 1998-10-01 ISBN: 0380731770 Number of pages: 256 Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Book Reviews of Brown's RequiemBook Review: Ellroy's First Kicks Ass Summary: 5 Stars
Getting into Ellroy? Why not start at the beginning? Watch his style develop. I think folks get disappointed when they read this and other earlier works after they read "the hits" like "L.A. Confidential" and "American Tabloid." But hey, had he come out of the gates with "American Tabloid" he'd probably be done by now. Fortunately for us, Ellroy started off slow. "Brown's Requiem" is a much more straightforward hard-boiled novel. But just like his later work, it rocks, it rolls, it leaves you on the side of the road hitchiking back to town. As I read this book, I couldn't help thinking of it as an updated "The Big Sleep." It has that sad, broken, 3 am undertone to it. If you dig that tough, L.A. stuff, you'll dig this. Note: The story does involve caddies and golf (which I know nothing about) but it doesn't matter. The golf element is merely a backdrop. The book is also about murder, arson and Mexican porn and, regardless of what my friends will tell you, I know nothing about these subjects either and still enjoyed the Hell out this book. Put it this way: You won't be reading any excerpts from "Brown's Requiem" in "Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul."
Summary of Brown's RequiemFritz Brown's L.A.--and his life--are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorales sung for the dead. A less-than-spotless former cop with a drinking problem--a private eye-cum-repo man with a taste for great music--he has been known to wallow in the grime beneath the Hollywood glitter. But Fritz Brown's life is about to change, thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes too much cash for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap. Reopening this cas could be Fritz's redemption; his welcome back to a moral world and his path to a pure and perfect love. But to get there, he must make it through a grim, lightless place where evil has no national borders; where lies beget lies and death begets death; where there's little tolerance for Bach or Beethoven and deadly arson is a lesser mortal sin; and where a p.i.'s unhealthy interest in the past can turn beautiful music into funeral dirge. Before he began to remap the geography of the crime novel and venture out into the darkest noir night of them all with L.A. Confidential, The Black Dahlia, White Jazz, and American Tabloid, James Ellroy started his career with this powerful but basically straightforward book about Los Angeles private eye Fritz Brown. At first glance, the story of an investigation into a crooked golf tournament that opens up to include arson and murder could be just another work by any one of the dozens of good writers who have used Southern California as a metaphor for the decline and fall of civilization. But behind the terse prose, astute readers will soon begin to hear something else--the increasingly loud clamor of a cry of pain that will eventually become the barely manageable madness of Ellroy's later books. --Dick Adler
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