Destination: Morgue Book

The fragments of memoir, and three stories, which make up Ellroy's Destination Morgue share the same high-octane nervous jabber, the same noir world of amphetamines, neon and women brutally killed. Ellroy has never entirely got over the murder of his mother--he says so a lot, but that is no reason not to believe him--or a youth of bigotry and petty crime which made him rather more likely to end up a lifer than a best seller. If, at times, he is a bit too keen to tell us how street smart he is, he has nonetheless earned much of the right to do so; pieces here about a pornography obsession or dead killers he quasi-identified with have a scary honesty to them. It is shocking that a man is prepared to say such things about anyone, let alone about himself. The novellas--collectively 'Rick Loves Donna'--anatomize the thoroughly and entertainingly unhealthy obsession across the decades of a corrupt cop for a starlet with a taste for involvement in vigilante violence. They are not quite vintage Ellroy--a little too close for that to Mickey Spillane on the one hand and the Simpson's 'Itchy and Scratchy' on the other--but they will do until his next dark mad masterpiece comes along.--Roz KaveneyRead More