In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb.  Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running.  He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself. Â
In My Dark Places, our most uncompromising crime writer tells what happened when he teamed up with a brilliant homicide cop to investigate a murder that everyone else had forgotten--and reclaim the mother he had despised, desired, but never dared to love. What ensues is a epic of loss, fixation, and redemption, a memoir that is also a history of the American way of violence.
"Ellroy is more powerful than ever."
--The Nation Â
L.A. O. (LA) from TUCSON, AZ wrote on 10/7/2005...
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
An absolutely haunting book by one of the most brilliant crime writers around, James Ellroy. Ellroy goes back in time and back to Los Angeles to ivestigate the murder of his own mother.
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Crystal C. (satsumatree264) from PHILADELPHIA, PA wrote on 4/26/2007...
One of my favorite crime novels.
Ana O. (AnaLiss) from FORT WORTH, TX wrote on 2/5/2007...
Wow! James Ellroy really opened himself and his personal life for all to see. Excellent, excellent book.
Jan W. (lilikoi) from HONOLULU, HI wrote on 10/16/2006...
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
"Both a harrowing autobiography and a disturbingly fixated love story … blunt, graphic, and oddly exhilarating." San Francisco Chronicle