To me, everything of his before LAConfidential was good crime
fiction, but
not special in the sense of lasting literary importance (and
damn fine
reading). Hollywood Nocturnes allows a reader to see the
older short
stories, written before LAC, as well as ones written after
(even a modern
setting, in Gravy Train), and Dick Contino's Blues, expanding
cartoonishly
and wonderfully on the White Jazz riffing.
Don't give up on Ellroy, then. He's an author who gets better
with time,
not one who does a bang up early career and then fades
away.
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