I called Irwin, my driver, and told him to meet me at my place in an hour and to bring coffee - there was work on the line. He was grumpy until i mentioned money. I hung up and looked out my window. It was getting light. Hollywood, below me, was filling up with hazy sunshine. I felt a slight tremor ; part caffeine, part Beethoven, part a last passage of night air. I felt my life was going to change.
Brown's Requiem
James Ellroy
1981
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Wilshire and La Brea
Los Angeles 1937
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The Verdict (1982)
My mother's crime scene to me is all crime scenes. The crime scene to me is - it's primal. Almost oedipal. The moment of the discovery of her body is in many ways the moment of my birth, because it's the genesis of my detectives obsessions with the murders that they ultimately become consumed by.
James Ellroy
The system worked because felons and misdemeanants plead guilty most of the time and did not file nuisance appeals routinely. The system worked because pre-breakdown jail time was doable. Criminals were pre-psychologized. They accepted authority. They knew they were lowlife scum because they saw it on TV and read it in the papers. They were locked into a rigged game. Authority usually won.
My Dark Places
James Ellroy
1996
LA Confidential
It all came down to money - the great equalizer and common denominator.
James Ellroy
The Big Nowhere
1988
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Alfred Eisenstadt
Linda James - 99 River Street
