 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "L.A. Confidential" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 First edition cover | |
| Author | James Ellroy |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Jacket design by Paul Gamarello Jacket illustration by Stephen Peringer |
| Language | English |
| Series | L.A. Quartet |
| Genre | Crime fiction,noir,historical fiction |
| Publisher | The Mysterious Press |
Publication date | June 1990 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) and audio cassette |
| Pages | 496 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| ISBN | 0-89296-293-3 (first edition, hardcover) |
| OCLC | 21041119 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3555.L6274 L18 1990 |
| Preceded by | The Big Nowhere (1988) |
| Followed by | White Jazz (1992) |
L.A. Confidential (1990) is aneo-noir novel by American writerJames Ellroy, the third of hisL.A. Quartet series.[1][2] It isdedicated to Mary Doherty Ellroy. Theepigraph is "A glory that costs everything and means nothing"—Steve Erickson.
The story follows severalLos Angeles Police Department officers in the 1950s who become embroiled in a mix of sex, corruption, and murder following a massacre at the Nite Owl coffee shop. The story eventually encompassesorganized crime,political corruption, heroin trafficking, pornography, prostitution, and Hollywood. The title refers to the scandal magazineConfidential, which is fictionalized asHush-Hush. It also deals with the real "Bloody Christmas" scandal.
The three protagonists are LAPD officers. Edmund Exley, the son of prestigious detective Preston Exley, is a "straight arrow" who informs on other officers in a police brutality scandal. He is first and foremost a politician and a ladder climber, trying to be more than his famous father’s son. This earns the enmity of Wendell "Bud" White, an intimidating enforcer with a fixation on men who abuse women as his own mother was a victim. Between the two of them is Jack Vincennes, who acts as more of a celebrity than a cop, who is atechnical advisor on a police television show calledBadge of Honor (similar to the real-life showDragnet) and provides tips to a scandal magazine. The three of them must set their differences aside to unravel the conspiracy linking the novel's events.
TheChicago Tribune said, "Ellroy is a master at juggling plot lines, using a stripped, spare noir style that hits like a cleaver but is honed like a scalpel".[3]
The Los Angeles Times gave a critical review, calling the novel "incontinent mayhem" with a plot "faster than a stray bullet and equally random."[4]
Kirkus Reviews describedLA Confidential as "energetic, sprawling, and often stylistically irritating."[5]
The New York Times wrote that "the plotting becomes so tortuous and the narrative style so burdened by repetitive scenes of atrocious violence that the author compromises the truthfulness of his own vision."[6]
| Character | 1997 movie | 2003 TV pilot | 2018 TV pilot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Det. Lt. Edmund "Ed" Exley | Guy Pearce | David Conrad | Brian J. Smith |
| Ofc. Wendell "Bud" White | Russell Crowe | Josh Hopkins | Mark Webber |
| Det. Sgt. Jack Vincennes | Kevin Spacey | Kiefer Sutherland | Walton Goggins |
| Capt. Dudley Smith | James Cromwell | Tom Nowicki | Tony Curran |
| Lynn Bracken | Kim Basinger | Melissa George | Sarah Jones |
| Sid Hudgens | Danny DeVito | Pruitt Taylor Vince | Dominic Burgess |
| Pierce Patchett | David Strathairn | Eric Roberts | TBA |
| Det. Richard "Dick" Stensland | Graham Beckel | TBA | Shea Whigham |
The book was adapted for a 1997film of the same name, directed and co-written byCurtis Hanson and starringKevin Spacey,Russell Crowe,Guy Pearce,James Cromwell,Kim Basinger,David Strathairn andDanny DeVito. The film was universally acclaimed. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards; Kim Basinger won both aGolden Globe and anAcademy Award forBest Supporting Actress for her performance in the film, while Curtis Hanson andBrian Helgeland won the Oscar forBest Adapted Screenplay.
In 2003, a television pilot ofL.A. Confidential was aired. However, the pilot was not picked up as a running series. The show's main actors would have beenKiefer Sutherland,Josh Hopkins,David Conrad,Pruitt Taylor Vince,Melissa George, Tom Nowicki, andEric Roberts. The pilot is a special feature on the two-disc DVD and theBlu-ray releases of the film.
In 2018,CBS ordered a new pilot based on the novel.[7] The pilot would starWalton Goggins as Vincennes,[8]Mark Webber as White,[9]Brian J. Smith as Exley,[10]Sarah Jones as Lynn,[11] Alana Arenas as June,[9] andShea Whigham as Dick Stensland.[9][12][13] In May 2018, it was announced that the pilot would not be moving forward.
Works byJames Ellroy | |
|---|---|
| Stand-alone |
|
| Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy |
|
| L.A. Quartet |
|
| Underworld USA Trilogy |
|
| The L.A. Quintet |
|
| Short story collections |
|
| Non-fiction |
|
| Original screenplays |
|
| Film adaptations |
|
