American Tabloid

De: James Ellroy

Narrado por: Christopher Lane

We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination - in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, DC....

Where the CIA, the Mob, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban political exiles, and various loose cannons conspire in a covert anarchy....

Where the right drugs, the right amount of cash, the right murder, buys a moment of a man's loyalty....

Where three renegade law-enforcement officers - a former L.A. cop and two FBI agents - are shaping events with the virulence of their greed and hatred, riding full-blast shotgun into history....

James Ellroy's trademark nothing-spared rendering of reality, blistering language, and relentless narrative pace are here in electrifying abundance, put to work in a novel as shocking and daring as anything he's written: a secret history that zeroes in on a time still shrouded in secrets and blows it wide open.

©1995 James Ellroy (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved

Great Performance by Christopher Lane!

Ellroy at his best! Christopher Lane at his Best! If you have doubts about Audio books doing great novels justice, hit play and sit back. It will transcend you!

nice!!!

and so it was acted and so it was written no one does it better

Best American Mob Novel

One of my favorite books.

In my experience, I've found that you either love James Ellroy, or you detest him. He is mostly known for his sharp short prose that bounces like a dropped butchers knife on the kitchen floor.

Thanks to Oliver Stone's film JFK, it seemed that everyone and their brother was doing something on JFK's assassination in the early 1990's. New conspiracy theories were coming out like gossip in the theeatre pool; New evidence seemed to be coming out, and I'm sure that Geraldo Rivera did something on him too at some point. I remember when Quantum Leap (one of my favorite shows during that time) even did something on it. The whole topic, while interesting, became over-saturated.

But then, in 1995, James Ellroy came out with something spectacular. A fictionalized account that that spans five years, leading up to the Kennedy Assassination is better than some of the teeth gripping conspiracies that are floating around. Ellroy doesn't go off and say that "this is actually how it was done" (we'll never know that), but his story is so fleshed out and detailed, that it all seems so plausible.

In normal Ellroy style, his characters are flawed. And he, in a style that was perfected in his 1990 novel LA Confidential, he is able to span months at a time by letting us read Headlines, or Confidential Documents or Audio Transcripts that help fill in the spaces without "talking about them". It's brilliant. Because there are times that you almost feel like you're not reading a book, as much as an investigator who has either been privy to secret documents, or have broken into someones office to peek at them.

Ellroy's world is a dark one. His is a guy who will never be seen writing YA or a picture book. And it's only been in recent years that I've seen a promotional photo of him where he's seen smiling. Which is a little off setting, because -- if you've read his work -- you think that the guy must never smile. But regardless of his dark nature, there's always something intriguing about his work. And American Tabloid is a true winner.

How I like to explain the book to others is: American Tabloid is the mob movie that made the Godfather look like a fairy tale. Now they just have to make the movie.

If I had one complaint about the Unabridged Audiobook is that: I was excited to get my hands on this unabridged recording for sometime. I had a copy of the Unabridged version that was done by Books-On-Tape years ago (narrated, I believe, by Dick Hill). Christopher Lane does a fantastic job in his delivery, and even with creating the personas of the characters he's develops. My only beef is that there are moments where it seems like the producer had seamed in points that needed to be re-recorded with Dick Hill's narration. It didn't take away from my enjoyment of the audiobook, but it was noticeable to me. Like a little bit of apple skin stuck between my teeth.


But other than that, fantastic all around.

good choice

very interesting book, enjoyed listing to it, good mix of fact and fiction. recommend it

Great listen

James Ellroy is a master storyteller. Great performance made it more satisfying. Very well done.