James Ellroy: Difference between revisions

* [[Kill'Em All]]: There's pretty much no one left standing by the end of {{spoiler|''Blood's a Rover''}}.

* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]: This happens a lot. For example, in ''The Cold Six Thousand'' Wayne Tedrow Jr is trying to get away from the shadow of his father - a racist who has made a fortune publishing hate literature. He is dispatched to kill an unarmed black man, who has offended the wrong people in Vegas, for the titular amount of money. He cannot bring himself to do it. The man he was sent to kill {{spoiler|ends up raping and murdering Wayne's wife}}. A similar thing happens in ''Bloods a Rover'' where Wayne goes to warn a black man that he is to be framed for a murder Wayne committed and {{spoiler|he ends up having to kill him and an innocent bystander after the guy attacks him. He goes on to steal from the Mob and uses the proceeds to fund leftist causes in the Dominican Republic after seeing how minorities are treated there. He is randomly murdered while walking among the people he is trying to help. Dwight Holly is murdered by Scotty Bennett when he tries to prevent Bennett from killing Crutch.}}

* [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]]: {{spoiler|''Blood's a Rover''}} comes very close to this. As one of the (very few) surviving characters notes towards the end of the book, having gone through hell and finally uncovered the conspiracy: "He had [the] story now. Facts clicked into place, redundant. Who gives a shit?"

* [[Took a Level In Badass]]: {{spoiler|Don Crutchfield}} overcomes voodoo drug induced paralysis through sheer force of will, bites the head off a live rat just to prove he can and kills the two guys who did this to him and were about to murder him. He later kills {{spoiler|Jean-Philippe and the mercs}} with a flamethrower and is responsible for the death of {{spoiler|J. Edgar Hoover}} and the destruction of his blackmail files. He is the only main character to survive the book and at the end it is revealed that, following the events of the novel, he became a Hollywood power broker. This character is the [[Chew Toy]] for much of the story and his mob nickname is Dipshit.

* [[Villain With Good Publicity]]: Notably {{spoiler|Dudley Smith}}, although most of Ellroy's cop protaganists are this to some extent.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Authors]]

[[Category:James Ellroy]]