White Jazz

A Novel

De: James Ellroy

Narrado por: Scott Brick

Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns - it's standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He's a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer, a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire.

Klein's been hung out as bait, "a bad cop to draw the heat", and the heat's coming from all sides: from local politicians, from LAPD brass, and from racketeers and drug kingpins, all of them hell-bent on keeping their own secrets hidden. For Klein, "42 and going on dead", it's dues time.

Klein tells his own story, his voice clipped, sharp, often as brutal as the events he's describing, taking us with him on a journey through a world shaped by monstrous ambition, avarice, and perversion. It's a world he created, but now he'll do anything to get out of it alive.

Fierce, riveting, and honed to a razor edge, White Jazz is crime fiction at its most shattering.

©2007 James Ellroy (P)2007 Books on Tape

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Riffling, rolling, reeling....Ellroy's best." ( The Denver Post)
"One of the great American writers of our time." ( Los Angeles Times Book Review)
" White Jazz makes previous detective fiction read like Dr. Seuss." ( San Francisco Examiner)

Scott Brick hits a home run!

Great book. Scott Brick always came across to me as a somewhat boring narrator, but this time he nailed it!

What a great book!

I've always loved this book and hearing it read by Scott Brick is a real treat. I don't get all the 1 star reviews. This is a really good book.

I wish Audible would get some more Ellroy books. An unabridged version of "LA Confidential" would be a great start. Followed by "The Big Nowhere".

Enjoyable...

There are better Ellroy books, but this was pretty good. The real downfall was Scott Brick. Normally I like him, but he's wrong for Ellroy. He can't do gritty pulp.

Someone's always watching

Scott Brick is a fantastic narrator and
Ellroy is still king of noire prose atmosphere

Raw, Challenging Final Act Needed Better Narrator

I’ve been a fan of James Ellroy for 25 years now but I only started listening to the audiobook versions of his work. It took me about 2 years to get around to all of them but I recently finished listening to his entire body of work, and White Jazz was the only one that featured a narrator that either just isn’t very good ior was at least wrong for this. Personally I’m leaning toward the former but this is the only thing I’ve heard him read so maybe he does a better job elsewhere, but he nearly ruins this. It’s too bad because White Jazz is a really great novel that features some of the best and boldest writing stylistically that Ellroy has ever done, and features a pretty insane plot that’s a worthy conclusion to the famed LA Quartet.

Time period

Attention to detail. How things have changed from the 50's till today. Love stories from the old days

The Violence

James Ellroy kicks it up another notch with each novel! Highly Recommended Crime Novel

White Jazz LA series

Great end to the 4 nook series. Dudley finally reaps bad Karma. Audiobook added a lot to experience. Narration makes it feel like a play. Hotta experience the entire set of books!

Love me fierce in danger.

"in the end I possess my birthplace and I am possessed by its language."
-- Ross MacDonald."

"Tell me anything
Tell me everything.
Revoke our time apart.
Love me fierce in danger."
-- James Ellroy, White Jazz

4.5 stars. Sure, you could read this as just the final book in Ellory's masterpiece LA Quartet, but Ellory is playing for bigger stakes. He isn't just writing crime. He is writing the human condition. He isn't just giving you straight dope. He is playing you with pairs. He gives you E. Exley v D. Smith. He gives you Noonan vs. Gallaudet. He gives you J.C. Kafesjian v.P. Herrick, Richie V. Tommy, Sad mom vs Crazy mom.

Think of all of these pairs as fugues that swirl around the narrator, dirty Lieutenant David Klein, reflecting, stream of consciousness, talking, screaming, building, dropping. The narration is like jazz playing two themes together into one. The themes finally coalesce and you see that black and white, criminal and the cop, these are all just linked brothers and sister trapped in a long and fatal incestuous battle for survival, for love, for understanding.

Coda:

In the end everybody dies, but you hope before then someone tells you the truth and tells you they love you. If you are lucky, perhaps, those two will be the same.

Did I read the same book...

I am shocked at the 3 negative reviews. I loved this book as I do all of James Ellroy's work.
Ellroy searches into his character's souls and the results are not pretty. He has a great understanding of what he is writing about.
The writing style is different. sort of 1 word sentences, but it is not hard to follow at all.
White Jazz is sort of a snap shot of urban life at a specific time in our history. The reality is real. The reality is disturbing.