This Storm: A novel

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The dogs of war have been unleashed in a global conflagration dubbed World War II. The paranoia unleashed on the United States is exemplified in Los Angeles, Sergeant Dudley Smith, a jack of all trades, many of them illicit, is the hard-hitting long arm of the law in the LAPD while serving in the SIS down in Mexico. His idealism bears more than a twinge of fascism. Hideo Ashida is a brilliant scientist for the LAPD who has compromised civic duty for his family’s safety during the internments. Elmer Jackson is a Sergeant in the LAPD who loathes Smith and his brutality and seeks to rid the LAPD of Smith. The three men are surrounded by women who can entice them or throw their worlds askew. Kay Lake is one such young woman who is involved with volatile Capt. Bill Parker, attempting to temper his self-destructive ways and mold him into greatness. The world they inhabit is a maelstrom waiting to go off its axis in a mixture of murder and mayhem.

This Storm is the powerful second entry of James Ellroy’s second LA Quartet. The hard-boiled edge of Ellroy’s prose marks each chapter with a sharp edge. The protagonists and antagonists elicit sympathy and pity, sometimes in the same paragraph. Ellroy writes a morality play, but on a deeper level. The Demon Dog strikes again brilliantly.


Reviewed By:

Author James Ellroy
Star Count /5
Format Hard
Page Count 608 pages
Publisher Knopf
Publish Date 2019-06-04
ISBN 9780307957009
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue July 2019
Category Mystery, Crime, Thriller
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