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Book Review By David Loftus
Brown's Requiem by James Ellroy

Fritz Brown, a burned-out ex-LA cop, makes ends meet by doing car repo's. His "private detective agency" is little more than a tax shelter. When a fat and obnoxious golf caddy who carries a surprising amount of cash hires Brown to investigate his beautiful cello-playing sister's relationship with a wealthy Jewish furrier (an apparent sugar daddy), Brown gradually finds himself mucking through family secrets, Mexican pornography, police corruption, and an 11-year-old arson case that was supposedly solved by a respected senior police officer. This is an admirable debut novel by a writer destined for future greatness. The dialogue is a little too clean and clear, but piquant details include the hero's love of classical German composers, an appreciation of LA golf courses, a good solid look at life in Tijuana and Ensenada, and passing references to Philip Marlowe and Ellroy's ongoing obsession, the Black Dahlia.


Plot & Themes
Tone of story - Dry-cynical -
How difficult to spot villain? - Somewhat obvious
Time/era of story:
What % of story relates directly to the mystery, not the subplot? - 60%
Murder of certain profession?
Misc. Murder Plotlets - "All in the family" murder
Kind of investigator
Kid or adult book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Any non-mystery subplot?
Crime Thriller Yes
Crime plotlets:
Murder Mystery (killer unknown) Yes
General Crime (including known murderer) Yes
Who's the criminal enemy here? - drug dealers - finding a known killer

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 40's-50's
Profession/status:
Motive of antagonist - power
The antagonists are: - radical right wingers
How sensitive is this character?
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - California
The Americas (not US): Yes
The Americas: - Mexico
City? Yes
City: - Los Angeles - Dirty, dangerous (like New York) - dangerous
Misc setting - fancy mansion

Writing Style
Accounts of torture and death? - very gorey references to deaths/dead bodies and torture
Explicit sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - actual description of sex - descript. of breasts - descript. of other female areas
Unusual forms of death - perforation--bullets - perforation--swords/knives
Unusual form of death? Yes
Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog
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