This Storm

Staccato. Readers are bombarded by the rhythm of staccato sentences over the course of almost six hundred pages of James Ellroy’s novel titled, This Storm. Set in Los Angeles in 1942, the novel combines complex and interesting fictional characters with some historical characters and events. The pace never lets up and the complexity increases as the cast of characters grows. There’s a noir mood from cover to cover and dialogue and language that fits the setting may grate contemporary readers. Patient readers are rewarded with avarice, vice, corruption and crimes aplenty. The world was crazy in 1942, and Ellroy draws readers into one slice of the world at that time and throws sentence after sentence at us until we are immersed or bludgeoned. I enjoyed the challenge of reading this novel. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase This Storm from amazon.com.