Confidentially Speaking

What? My blog hasn't had an entry in a while? Well, fear not, because it is time for...you guessed it... a book review! Who knows, perhaps all of these book review posts will be compiled for immediate inclusion in a used bookstore's bargain bin!

Today's featured story is another long one...sitting at 497 pages is James Ellroy's classic "L.A. Confidential". This is another thick piece of pulp made into a movie years later, and the movie was quite good, starring Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Spacey. OK, we all (meaning I) know how this goes...I give a character profile, a major spoiler alert, followed by movie-book comparison/contrasts.

Characters
Edmond Exley: He is an accidental World War 2 hero, making his way up the ranks in the LAPD. He feels he has much to prove, and will do anything to get where he wants. By the book's end, he is a cold-hearted cop who has lost much to attain his goals.

Wendell "Bud" White: He is a brutal detective who has a penchant for defending female victims of abuse. He holds a grudge against Exley for the majority of the book. He is duped into doing what his superior officer Dudley Smith wants for years.

Jack Vincennes: He is an alcoholic and a narcotics cop who is also a technical adviser on the TV show "Badge of Honor". He has a years-old demon hanging over him, which threatens his career and marriage.

Sid Hudgens: He is a sleazy reporter for the L.A. tabloid "Hush Hush", and loves to catch celebrities doing illegal drugs for a story. He and Jack Vincennes have a business relationship, and he holds a secret Jack wishes he did not.

Dudley Smith: A cold, calculating Irish lieutenant, then captain. He is the brains behind much of the sordid activity in the book and has a crew of loyal lapdog cops working under him.

Pierce Patchett: He is a rich, influential pimp and chemist. He runs a call girl service called Fleur di Lis and is also in league with Sid Hudgens in the blackmail department.

Ray Dieterling: He is a Walt Disney caricature who carries many dark secrets, one of which is a running back story which unfolds at the end.

Preston Exley: Edmond's father, a self righteous cop turned architect. He also has a dark secret which costs him at the book's end.

***SPOILER***

The book opens with a short scene in 1950 of an ex-cop named Buzz Meeks hiding in a San Berdoo (Bernardino)  motel with an extensive amount of heroin. He is immediately hunted down by Dudley Smith and his crew and killed by Dudley himself.

The book then moves into Christmas 1951.Several Mexican men are booked for assault on 2 cops. Several cops, having imbibed in liquor brought into the station that night and led by Bud White's brutal and drunk partner Dick Stensland, go to the jail cells to beat on the Mexicans. Exley is the deputy watch commander. but has no control over the men and is locked in the supply room by one of them. Bud tried to stop his partner but is provoked by the Mexicans into throwing some vicious punches himself. Jack Vincennes also tries to garner some control, but fails and also throws a punch.

The ambush gets quite an exposure in the papers. Ed Exley uses the opportunity to advance his career by snitching on the violent cops.  Bud White and Dick Stensland are thrown off the force, and Jack agrees to corroborate Exley's testimony and serve on administrative vice as his wrist slap. Exley is promoted to lieutenant, but gets small cases and is shunned by his fellow officers as a snitch, Bud White is reinstated by Dudley Smith to permanently serve under him. One night, White and Stensland in disguise beat on Exley in a parking lot. Exley later gets the goods on Stensland for parole violation and has him arrested.

Soon thereafter, Ellis Loew is elected as district attorney with help from Jack Vincennes who not only introduced him to the woman he'd marry, but also worked with Sid Hudgens to permanently smear his opponent.

In 1953, the Nite Owl Diner has a major shooting and the victims of note are San Berdoo native Susan Lefferts, ex-cop Mal Lunceford, and pimp wannabe Duke Cathcart. It is reported that three black men were seen in a purple Mercury fleeing the scene. Some men are arrested on leads, and Exley interrogates them, finding out they abducted a girl. Bud White watches and then storms in, demanding an address. He rushes to it, finding a raped and beaten woman, Inez Soto, tied up in one room.  Bud finds one of her captors in the next room and shoots him. Inez refuses to talk to the police, she just wants the "putos" to suffer. Ed Exley tries to be kind to her, but she taunts him with Bud White's bravado. Exley finds the men after they escaped from jail and shoots them all and is lauded a hero.

In the interim afterward, Sid Hudgens is killed, Jack Vincennes goes to find Sid's secret files but finds nothing. He soon meets up with Pierce Patchett's underlings Lynn  Bracken and Lamar Hinton who have stolen Sid's files form the bank. The files indeed contain dirt on him and an accidental 1947 double shooting of 2 innocent people, but Pierce Patchett owns the carbons.

A paroled Dick Stensland partakes in an armed robbery and commits murder in the process. He is arrested, sentenced, and executed in the gas chamber.

Inez Soto, who formed a brief relationship with Ed following his shooting of her rapists, is sleeping with other men, particularly Bud White and is also working for theme park creator Ray Dieterling. She and Ed soon break up.

The scandal papers soon question the validity of the Nite Owl murders following testimony from a prison inmate who knew the 3 men Ed shot. An extensive re-investigation begins. Ed forms an alliance with Jack and an uneasy one with Bud., as Bud still wants to ruin Ed over Stensland's ruination and execution.

In the extensive investigation, Internal Affairs head Ed Exley finds out that the real Nite Owl shooters were former Mickey Cohen hoods Abe Tetelbaum, Johnny Stompanato, and Lee Vachss, along with driver Deuce Perkins in order to take over Pierce Patchett's smut empire. Sid Hudgens's killer was Ray Dieterling's insane illegitimate son David Mertens, over a complicated plot involving Mertens's torturing and killing of a child 18 years previously. He was never arrested, as another named Loren Atherton was falsely arrested by Preston Exley and later executed. Preston Exley also killed Dieterling's other son who looked exactly like David and who was hated by Ray. Ed confronts his father and Dieterling over the cover-up and the 2 older men commit suicide.

In the end, Ed, Jack, and Bud engage in a shootout with Lee Vachss and Abe Tetelbaum, killing them both. While Ed seeks David Mertens, Jack and Bud intercept a train full of convicts containing the men who tried to kill Mickey Cohen in prison. Jack is killed and Bud is severely wounded before killing Deuce Perkins.

In the end, Bud and his love Lynn Bracken head to Arizona so he can recover (although he will never be a cop again) and Ed vows to nail Dudley Smith, the mastermind behind the Nite Owl.

***SPOILER END***

Overall, the book is much more extensive than that brief spoiler, and involves some detailed and pretty sick smut descriptions. It gives the idea that 1950s L.A. is one big place full of crime and filth.  My favorite character of all the main ones is Jack Vincennes, a sad man haunted by a bad mistake who is trying to make his life better and ends up dying in his valiant call to duty.

Movie comparison/contrast

The movie focuses mainly on Bloody Christmas and the Nite Owl, and most of the smut angle is not present. Completely missing is the story involving Ed's father and Ray Dieterling. Plus, in the movie Dudley Smith is killed by Ed. IN the book, Jack gets married to a younger girl who goes from enamored to disillusioned. In the movie, he remains single..

One big similarity is Bud's hatred of Ed because of Stensland's downfall (in the movie Stensland is killed at the Nite Owl). In the book, Bud comes around during the shooting at the diner, while in the movie he and Ed join forces when they realize who the real bad guy is.

The book contained a large population of gay characters and pedophiles, something almost completely missing in the film. In the end, I say keep with the book, you will be more satisfied.