Perfidia

"A powerful roar of a story. . . . Wickedly elaborate, its plotting brilliant. . . . Kudos to Ellroy for elevating the crime genre." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Pure, unadulterated Ellroy and a darkly compelling deconstruction of the recent American past. . . . Perfidia shows us the war on the home front as we have never seen it before." --The Washington Post

"[The first L.A. Quartet] made Ellroy America's best crime novelist. . . . Perfidia represents new depth, scope, and craftsmanship in [his] canon. It is his finest work." --Austin Chronicle

"Ellroy successfully spins a drug-alcohol-and-nefarious-deeds-fueled wartime web of double-dealing betrayal, insidious activities, and gruesome atrocities. . . . . It's tough and ugly and infuriating--and relentlessly readable." --The Boston Globe

"One of the great American writers of our time." --Los Angeles Times

"A brilliant, breakneck ride. Nobody except James Ellroy could pull this off. He doesn't merely write--he ignites and demolishes."--Carl Hiaasen

"[Ellroy's] style--jumpy, feverish, and anarchic--mirrors the world we enter. . . . [He] depicts with frightening authenticity how those innocent of crimes are knowingly framed in the interest of the almighty 'greater good'." --Dennis Lehane, The New York Times Book Review

"Ellroy has a way of giving gravitas to ugliness and making brutality beautiful. . . . To see him operating this way, full of power and totally in his comfort zone, is an awesome thing to behold." --NPR/All Things Considered

"Ask me to name the best living novelist who's fierce, brave, funny, scatological, beautiful, convoluted, and paranoid . . . and it becomes simple: James Ellroy. If insanity illuminated by highly dangerous strokes of literary lightning is your thing, then Ellroy's your man." --Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

"Grittier than Chandler, more operatic than Hammett, and more violent even than Cain. . . . Ellroy whittles [his characters'] thoughts and actions into sentences the way others do shivs--lean, brutalist, and intended to puncture, to penetrate." --Interview magazine

"It is welcome news that Ellroy's latest effort, Perfidia, returns home, sliding in as a prequel to the L.A. Quartet, set in the previous decade. . . . He is driven by a paradoxical obsession: to keep on digging up dark memories of the city, in the hope of rising above the psychic traumas of the past--not reborn, but newly wise." --The Atlantic

"If Ellroy's bitter visions entice you, Perfidia will take you once again to the underbelly of American history. . . . You will dive into Perfidia with a shiver that is equal parts anticipation and fear--because you know it's going to get very dark very fast. . . . Ellroy's singular style has been described as jazzlike or telegraphic; here it is insomniac, hallucinogenic, nightmarish." --Tampa Bay Times

"There has never been a writer like James Ellroy. . . . He has been making real a secret world behind the official history of America . . . and to enter it is to experience a vivid eyeball rush of recognition." --The Telegraph (London)

"Perfidia brings the two sides of his work together: the period crime-writing of LA Quartet, with its highlighting of police misdemeanors, and the wider politico-historical concerns of his subsequent Underworld USA trilogy." --The Guardian (London), "Essential New Fiction"

"A war novel like no other. . . . There's no telling the good guys from the bad in Ellroy's Los Angeles, because there are no good guys. . . . Ellroy is not only back in form--he's raised the stakes." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A return to the scene of Ellroy's greatest success and a triumphant return to form. . . . His character portrayals have never been more nuanced or--dare we say it--sympathetic. . . . A disturbing, unforgettable, and inflammatory vision of how the men in charge respond to the threat of war. It's an ugly picture, but just try looking away." --Booklist (starred review)