Just Finished Reading: Clandestine by James Ellroy

Fred Underhill is a lost soul living in 1950’s LA. His two major pastimes are picking up women and playing golf. Underhill is also a beat cop. Seeing existence as essentially meaningless he seeks out what he calls ‘the wonder’ of life on the streets. That is until his partner is gunned down during a convenience store robbery. When he becomes a hero for killing all three robbers he uses his notoriety to get him on the fast track to the detective division but soon becomes disillusioned with their casual brutality and blatant disregard for justice. After being accused of the arrest and torture of an innocent man Underhill is pressured into leaving the force and spends some years in the wilderness. But when a dead girl is found in similar circumstances to the case which ended his career he decides that maybe he got the right man after all. Delving deep into LA’s seedy underground Underhill is determined to get to the bottom of the murder even if he has to die trying.

This was a rather slow book for me. For most of it I wondered where exactly the author was leading me and although the tale was well enough told it didn’t – at least for the first half of the book – make a whole lot of sense. But slowly, as the story crept along, you began to see what Underhill saw and things gradually came into focus. The style was pure Noir – thought actually written in 1982 – which certainly added to the entertainment value. However, I struggled with the pacing as well as the unremitting sexism, racism and homophobia of just about ever character in the book. In effect there were no heroes to get behind and few true villains to watch fall. Practically every character was a victim of one sort or another – normally of random chance – who either coped by running away (normally into a bottle) or by hating the world they lived in. This is a seriously depressing book only suitable for those with a strong constitution. Not for the faint hearted and honestly not a book I greatly enjoyed.