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L.A. Confidential

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L.A. Confidential

By: James Ellroy
Narrated by: Jeff Harding
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About this listen

Christmas 1951, Los Angeles: a city where the police are as corrupt as the criminals.

Six prisoners are beaten senseless in their cells by cops crazed on alcohol. For the three LAPD detectives involved, it will expose the guilty secrets on which they have built their corrupt and violent careers. The novel takes these cops on a sprawling epic of brutal violence and the murderous seedy side of Hollywood.

©1990 James Ellroy (P)2016 Isis Publishing Ltd Crime Crime Thrillers Detective Fiction Mystery Police Procedural Suspense Thriller Thriller & Suspense Traditional Detectives

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All stars
Most relevant  
Well don't let that stop you from reading the book. Full of extensive detail and true to history events. LA Confidential is a page turning thrill ride.

Seen the movie?

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others said it was hard to follow, I didn't think so at all, I was gripped start to finish

compelling

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You often are told that the books are better than the film, but not in this case. The fact that Brian Helgeland cut that perfect diamond out of this hunk of rock is a miracle. It’s not bad, it’s just over-bloated and over-complicated with too many characters who are either the same or just there for other characters to talk to or have explain the plot. Narrator doesn’t help by giving everyone the same voice.

Not the film

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Great story, decent narrator, but the audio is off, so a lot of chapters start mid sentence.

Stops and starts.

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Really enjoyable book and brilliantly performed by Jeff Harding. I was debating purchasing the book beforehand because of the negative reviews with people complaining about struggling to keep up with the plot because of the amount of characters, and that it didn't work well as an audiobook etc etc, but I loved it. There is a lot going on and a lot of twists and turns but I enjoyed it. I watched the movie years ago and I saw James Ellroy complaining in an interview that he didn't think the performances in the movie were great, or true to his characters, but I have to disagree. It may be because I watched the movie first, but the performances in the movie were spot on, and really close to the characters in this book. Great book though. And I reckon that Jeff Harding could read through a dictionary and make it sound action packed and interesting. Definately worth a listen

Very good book and fantastic performance

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This is confused story which is difficult to follow and I only managed about the first 4 hours before giving up - the only redeeming feature was the performance of Jeff Harding.

Confusing at best

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I am not a fan of the short hand description writing, but it's still a classic story.

A classic

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Best crime novel I’ve listened to since Raymond Chandler. Played whole thing twice now to be sure of getting entire plot. Whatever the opposite is of “short-changed”, is how it leaves you feeling.
(for best experience do the books in order)

Brilliant

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Like a few other reviewers have said, this can be a very confusing book. I lost the story a couple of times with so many characters. It's very long also. The middle bit dragged for me a little. The narration is brilliant though. Really well done with lots of good accents and voices.

Brilliantly read, but confusing

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another gem from J. Ellroy, the narrator is perfect and the story twists and turns so intricately

Brilliant as ever

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