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coolbaud's review against another edition
Ugh. Audiobook. Too many characters, too much graphic racial epitaphs (read CONSTANT), just too much in general. Maybe a hard copy would work better for me but I guess we'll never know.
8797999's review against another edition
4.0
Superb. The second entry to the LA Quartet and my second experience of James Ellroy. What a story, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was a very thrilling read with some superb characters and several unexpected twists to the plot. Not one for the feint hearted. I really liked Danny as a character and for some reason Dudley Smith. He is a very good villain and easy to hate but also somewhat charming (in my opinion).
I would have liked it to be a bit deeper into the communism side of things but as far as the investigation went it was edge of your seat, full of lies, blood and corruption. Very visceral.
The next in the series is LA Confidential and I think many have that pegged as the best of the quartet so I am looking forward to experiencing it, I haven’t seen the film so am going in with preconceptions.
I would have liked it to be a bit deeper into the communism side of things but as far as the investigation went it was edge of your seat, full of lies, blood and corruption. Very visceral.
The next in the series is LA Confidential and I think many have that pegged as the best of the quartet so I am looking forward to experiencing it, I haven’t seen the film so am going in with preconceptions.
takumo_n's review against another edition
5.0
The spanish version of the title "El Gran Desierto (The Big Desert)" doesn't really have much to do with the novel. 99% of the plot happens in the city, and the Big Nowhere refers to the empty spaces trying to figure out why psychopaths do the things they do, or the silence between a big jazz soliloquy. Maybe the translators didn't read the thing. Anyhow, this book is about three cops in 50s´ Los Angeles, a captain Mal Considine who sees an oportunity to become a big shot in the bureau by going against communist infiltration in Hollywood while dealing with a divorce lawsuit (which his going up the ladder in his job will help), taking with him an ex cop problem solver for Howard Hughes and a mob guy "Buzz" Meeks while taking the girl of the mob guy, and Danny Upshaw a brilliant young detective who is also investigating a series of psychosexual crimes with queer undertones. The plot thickens the moment the two investigations start crossing one another. Every criminal witness and "good guy" is interesting, from their motives to their psychological underpinnings. Ellroy is absolutely brutal with his characters, he doesn't let them take a breath throughout the whole novel. And with clear muscly and 50s´ LA idiomatic prose the pace is relentless.
Cliché shouters, sloganeers, fashion-conscious pseudoidealists. Locusts attacking social causes with the wrong information and bogus solutions, their one legit gripe - the Sleepy Lagoon case - almost blown through guilt by association: fellow travelers soliciting actual Party members for picketing and leaflet distribution, nearly discrediting everything the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee said and did. Hollywood writers and actors and hangers-on spouting cheap trauma, Pinko platitudes and guilt over raking in big money during the Depression, then penancing the bucks out to spurious leftist causes
Sounds familiar?
Cliché shouters, sloganeers, fashion-conscious pseudoidealists. Locusts attacking social causes with the wrong information and bogus solutions, their one legit gripe - the Sleepy Lagoon case - almost blown through guilt by association: fellow travelers soliciting actual Party members for picketing and leaflet distribution, nearly discrediting everything the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee said and did. Hollywood writers and actors and hangers-on spouting cheap trauma, Pinko platitudes and guilt over raking in big money during the Depression, then penancing the bucks out to spurious leftist causes
Sounds familiar?
baxtervallens's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
mweisenfeld's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
tunawidow's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
5.0
nigellicus's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
5.0
I think this was my first Ellroy, or was it LA Confidential? Anyway, the clipped prose confused me, demanded attention, but the characters and the plot and the setting all came to life in their seedy, nasty, bloody glory, which overcame any diffictulties with the reading. An ugly New Year's Eve murder leads a repressed but ambitious young detective on the hunt for a dangerous killer. An anti-communist hearing, mostly designed to get the mob-connected Teamsters to supplant the existing studio union, gets underway, digging for dirt and blackmail to extort confessions and more names. The two are connected, and will draw in three cops, all basically terrible human beings, into a struggle to acheive a shred of redemption.
pditke's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
dantastic's review against another edition
5.0
In the midst of the Red Scare, a violated corpse with its eyes gouged out is found and young deputy detective Danny Upshaw catches the case. Meanwhile, Mal Considine is put in charge of rooting out communists in the UAES. Attached to his team are Dudley Smith, a veteran cop with a mean streak a mile wide, and Buzz Meeks, the dirtiest cop in town and the man whom his first wife had an affair with while he was fighting Germans in WWII...
Here we are, the second book in James Ellroy's multi-volume tale of wholesome family togetherness, the LA Quartet. Sarcasm aside, this was one brutal book.
It's hard to sum up a book with this kind of scope. In some ways, this book is the rise and fall of Danny Upshaw, the rise and fall of Mal Considine, and the redemption of Buzz Meeks, three very driven men. Upshaw will do anything to forget about his dark secret, burning the candle at both ends on two cases. Mal Considine needs a big win on the communist front to get custody of his son from his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Buzz Meeks tries to do the right thing despite a lifetime of doing the wrong ones.
In some ways, this book reads like [b:The Black Dahlia|21704|The Black Dahlia (L.A. Quartet, #1)|James Ellroy|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1387048173s/21704.jpg|434] 2.0. Ellroy has a few more balls in the air and more damaged men to put through the meat grinder. I knew the communist plot would dovetail with the death of Marty Goines and the others but I had no idea how.
As with the previous book, the characters make this a powerful read. Upshaw, Considine, and Meeks were all realistic and believable characters, much more nuanced than most crime fiction leads. Watching them go to their fates was like watching a car flying through a red light at an intersection, holding your breath and hoping nothing catastrophic happens. Meeks, who I dismissed as a disposable dirtbag at the beginning of the tale, wound up being my favorite character.
The communist plot didn't do a whole lot for me but the serial killer thread was balls to the wall. As the mystery rocketed toward the finish line, things got pretty tense and I thought about hiding out somewhere to finish it unbeknownst to my coworkers.
Ellroy's writing, the bleak offspring of Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, makes 1950s Hollywood seem like a shit-smeared labyrinth built on lies and the bodies of the dead. Despair falls like rain and the case played demolition derby with the lives of everyone involved. By the end of the book, I felt like I spent a few days chained to a radiator and beaten with a pipe wrench.
While I feel spent after reading it, The Big Nowhere is one hell of great read, both as a thriller and as a work of literature. Five out of five stars.
After thought: In a parallel universe, I'm sure this is marketed as the inspiration behind season two of True Detective.
Here we are, the second book in James Ellroy's multi-volume tale of wholesome family togetherness, the LA Quartet. Sarcasm aside, this was one brutal book.
It's hard to sum up a book with this kind of scope. In some ways, this book is the rise and fall of Danny Upshaw, the rise and fall of Mal Considine, and the redemption of Buzz Meeks, three very driven men. Upshaw will do anything to forget about his dark secret, burning the candle at both ends on two cases. Mal Considine needs a big win on the communist front to get custody of his son from his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Buzz Meeks tries to do the right thing despite a lifetime of doing the wrong ones.
In some ways, this book reads like [b:The Black Dahlia|21704|The Black Dahlia (L.A. Quartet, #1)|James Ellroy|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1387048173s/21704.jpg|434] 2.0. Ellroy has a few more balls in the air and more damaged men to put through the meat grinder. I knew the communist plot would dovetail with the death of Marty Goines and the others but I had no idea how.
As with the previous book, the characters make this a powerful read. Upshaw, Considine, and Meeks were all realistic and believable characters, much more nuanced than most crime fiction leads. Watching them go to their fates was like watching a car flying through a red light at an intersection, holding your breath and hoping nothing catastrophic happens. Meeks, who I dismissed as a disposable dirtbag at the beginning of the tale, wound up being my favorite character.
The communist plot didn't do a whole lot for me but the serial killer thread was balls to the wall. As the mystery rocketed toward the finish line, things got pretty tense and I thought about hiding out somewhere to finish it unbeknownst to my coworkers.
Ellroy's writing, the bleak offspring of Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson, makes 1950s Hollywood seem like a shit-smeared labyrinth built on lies and the bodies of the dead. Despair falls like rain and the case played demolition derby with the lives of everyone involved. By the end of the book, I felt like I spent a few days chained to a radiator and beaten with a pipe wrench.
While I feel spent after reading it, The Big Nowhere is one hell of great read, both as a thriller and as a work of literature. Five out of five stars.
After thought: In a parallel universe, I'm sure this is marketed as the inspiration behind season two of True Detective.
ccil541's review against another edition
4.0
I don't think I knew quite what to say after reading this book. I read it about a month ago, and it's only now that I feel qualified to discuss it. It's such a complex web and it takes some parsing. It's not quite as labyrinthine as L.A. Confidential, but it's sufficiently complex that you need to take your time.
Ellroy's characters are always the best part of any of his book, and this is no exception. All three main characters - Mal Considine, Buzz Meeks, and the brilliant Danny Upshaw - are bastards. But they're the driven, obsessed kind of bastard that you encounter in all Ellroy's works, and you're entirely capable of liking any or all of them. Considine beats his wife - but will do absolutely anything to give his adopted son a good life. Meeks is a drunk and a bagman, running skeevy deals for Howard Hughes - but falls in love with a strong, smart woman and damn near gives up anything for love. And Upshaw, poor Upshaw, is a strikingly driven cop reminiscent of Ed Exley - except between his secrets and his conscience, Upshaw does things both good and bad that I don't think Exley would even contemplate. The twists and turns are both sympathetic and cynical; in one breath Ellroy lets the world eat a good man and laments his loss.
This book reads like a dry run for LAC - but it's vivid and engrossing enough to be amazing on its own. It's also the first time you see Ellroy's favorite villain, Sgt-at-the-time Dudley Smith. There is nothing sacred in The Big Nowhere, and that's the way an Ellroy book should be.
Ellroy's characters are always the best part of any of his book, and this is no exception. All three main characters - Mal Considine, Buzz Meeks, and the brilliant Danny Upshaw - are bastards. But they're the driven, obsessed kind of bastard that you encounter in all Ellroy's works, and you're entirely capable of liking any or all of them. Considine beats his wife - but will do absolutely anything to give his adopted son a good life. Meeks is a drunk and a bagman, running skeevy deals for Howard Hughes - but falls in love with a strong, smart woman and damn near gives up anything for love. And Upshaw, poor Upshaw, is a strikingly driven cop reminiscent of Ed Exley - except between his secrets and his conscience, Upshaw does things both good and bad that I don't think Exley would even contemplate. The twists and turns are both sympathetic and cynical; in one breath Ellroy lets the world eat a good man and laments his loss.
This book reads like a dry run for LAC - but it's vivid and engrossing enough to be amazing on its own. It's also the first time you see Ellroy's favorite villain, Sgt-at-the-time Dudley Smith. There is nothing sacred in The Big Nowhere, and that's the way an Ellroy book should be.