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BLOOD'S A ROVER
by James Ellroy
Knopf, September 2009
656 pages
$28.95
ISBN: 0679403930


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

BLOOD'S A ROVER is a heavy book not only in the literal sense but also in the emotional sense. It is a novel immersed in the tumultuous world of the 1960s when the US was inthe early days of the Vietnam War, where inspirational leaders like Robert F Kennedy and Dr Martin Luther King were being assassinated, and crime was at an all-time high. It was not a pretty world and Ellroy does not try to beautify it. This was the way it was and he pulls no punches.

Ellroy has a way with words and language and he manages to keep it real. There are no euphemisms, no self-censoring, no limits. Readers are placed in the middle of things starting with a brazen armored car robbery during the daylight hours, followed by a shakeup inside a mob organization, conspiracies among American law enforcement organizations, and a cynical look at some influential figures from that era. This book is a work of fiction and nothing you read should be taken as fact. There are characters who interact with famous people such as J Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, and others. However none of them are portrayed in a favorable light, as there are no likeable characters in the book.

There is very little that I can say that has not been said by my colleague Nick Hay in his review for this same work. Suffice it to say, I am in agreement with him. What little I can add is that Ellroy is not an author that one can summarize in a few sentences or one that someone reads to pass the time. BLOOD'S A ROVER is a commitment as well as joy to read. I liked the book, but know that some of the material went over my head as I have not read the other two works in this trilogy. I was very favorably impressed all the same.

Reviewed by Angel L. Soto, February 2010

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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