Customer Reviews

Brown's Requiem

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Getting into Ellroy? Why not start at the beginning? Watch his style develop. I think folks get disappointed when they read this and other earlier works after they read "the hits" like "L.A. Confidential" and "American Tabloid." But hey, had he come out of the gates with "American Tabloid" he'd probably be done by now. Fortunately for us, Ellroy started off slow. "Brown's Requiem" is a much more straightforward hard-boiled novel. But just like his later work, it rocks, it rolls, it leaves you on the side of the road hitchiking back to town. As I read this book, I couldn't help thinking of it as an updated "The Big Sleep." It has that sad, broken, 3 am undertone to it. If you dig that tough, L.A. stuff, you'll dig this. Note: The story does involve caddies and golf (which I know nothing about) but it doesn't matter. The golf element is merely a backdrop. The book is also about murder, arson and Mexican porn and, regardless of what my friends will tell you, I know nothing about these subjects either and still enjoyed the Hell out this book. Put it this way: You won't be reading any excerpts from "Brown's Requiem" in "Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul."

This was Ellroy's first published novel. It's a good, solid crime novel. It's mostly in the tradition of his predecessors like Chandler and Hammett, but some of his future trademarks are there, like the seedy anti-hero who eventually discovers and follows his own moral imperative. It's a bit bumpy in spots, and sometimes the plot falls into place a bit too neatly, but it's a good read. It's not nearly as amazing as the L.A. Quartet or American Tabloid, all brilliant books for which he has become justifiably famous. I read this after reading those (as well as My Dark Places and Crime Wave). Had I read this first, I would have been shocked by his later work. Maybe The Black Dahlia is a better place to start for the Ellroy novice.. This one seems almost quaint in comparison.

I am not a James Ellroy fan. In fact, "Brown's Requiem" is the only novel of his that I have read, because it is the only one of his books I've found that is a straight private detective story. And as an example of the that genre, this books stands among the best. Ellroy's hero, Fritz Brown, is everything a good P.I. should be; world weary, cynical, alcoholic and carrying heavy baggage from his past. He also has plenty of good character eccentricities, like a fascination for classical music. He is also prone to make that classic P.I. mistake, to fall in love with a woman he knows he probably shouldn't fall in love with.

All of this said the book takes some unexpected twists and turns. Brown ends up investigating his own client, his romantic interest turns out to have a VERY complicated past and his case turns out to be far more elaboarate than it first appears. All of this leads to a violent and satisfying climax, like any good P.I. novel should. Fans of P.I. masters such Andrew Vachss, George Pellecanos and yes, Raymond Chandler, out to be right at home with Fritz Brown.

After reading Brown's Requiem I found out that this is Ellroy's first published novel. The plot is a lot more simple than some of his subsequent works. There is not much mystery as from the beginning we are given a fairly good indication of who the bad guys are. The mystery here seems to be more with how Private Investigator Fritz Brown handles the situation he is presented with. Brown is a private investigator in name only as the beginning of the novel finds him working almost exclusively as a repo man for a car dealer who we later find out still thinks that brown has some dirt on him. Brown is a former Los Angeles Police officer who struggles with a drinking problem. He admittedly was a horrible police officer and was forced to resign after the severe beating of a pervert who he was told not to touch as the guy was a snitch and valuable to the police. The entrance of 'Fat Dog' Baker into the mix draws Brown into the seedy underworld of the Loss Angeles golf caddy community. Brown is hired by Fat Dog to investigate the older man with whom his sister is living. As Brown is running all over Southern California, Tijuana Mexico and San Francisco California, he encounters various low life characters, caddies, police officers, relatives of murder victims, would be assasins, beach camping hippies, and various characters with organized crime connections. Brown uncovers evidence of various crimes including arsons, murders, bookmaking operations, and welfare scams. The result is an interesting, and rather straight forward, hard boiled detective story set in early 80's southern california colored by the main characters love of classical music...Hence the title Browns Requiem.
This novel will not be remembered as James Ellroy's best work, but it is a strong first effort and deserves to be read by those who enjoy this genre of fiction.

Published in 1981, this novel marked the beginning of the literary career of James Ellroy. A certain number of themes one will find in later novels are already present in BROWN'S REQUIEM : the "Black Dahlia" mystery, corruption in the L.A.P.D., a fascinating serial killer or the main character searching for redemption.

I liked a lot the unusual descriptions of the world of the golf's caddies or the immoderate love of Fritz Brown for classical music. For a first novel, it's clearly a winner and I recommend it to those of you who want to discover the venomous world of James Ellroy.

A book for Tiger.

Ellroy's first novel, and it shows. Not a bad book when compared with other writers, it's definitely below par for Ellroy. As a former caddie we can presume that Ellroy handles the sections of the book dealing with "loopers" and their lives accurately but other than this the plot of the book falls into place ridiculously easily. Is it really so simple to impersonate a police officer on the telephone every time you need some information? The book is also careless. A character is described is "slim and athletic" and then twenty pages later as "fat and strong". If you read this one, read it before you read any other Ellroy then maybe you won't be so disappointed.

Not to use a cliche or anything, but it was a book I was not able to put down. I started reading the book at midnight, and if it weren't for my eyes, I no doubt would have read it the whole way through that night. Anyway, it is a very entertaining novel that keeps you intrigued throughout thanks to new devolpments and twists in the story. Ellroy does an excellent job of devoloping the main character, Fritz Brown as well. I have not read any of Ellroy's other books, but after reading this one, I am certainly going to try another one of his novels.

This is pre-LA Quartet for Ellroy. Back before he found his beat-poet 'style'. Brown's Requiem, Clandestine, and Killer on the Road are just great books by a fledgling author. If you like his characterization, scene stylings, or dialog from LA Confidential or American Tabloid, but aren't crazy about the prose, check this one out.

Hits like a freight train with his earlier "bang bang" style that still moves well before his more recent scratchy, staccato style that's much more difficult. Think of this as right on the edge stopping just short of a work like Bukowski's hard boiled "Pulp" ... absolutely one of the very best hard boiled detective stories.

This is a story of the low-lifes of LA, the white trash doing whatever they can to get a few dollars. The low-life character is not built upon their low finacial status or their academic unability, but rather on their non-existing ethics. This, I think, is one of the major contributions Ellroy has made for the crime novel in our times. Crime and crime-solving are not the works of good samaritans, but rather scrupulous anti-christs, wheter it's the early 1980's (as in Brown's requiem) or the post-war era (as in the LA Quartet). This is why Ellroy is, in my point of view, the master of his genre. If you consider the fact that Brown's Requiem was his first novel, and that the book didn't turn out exactly as he planned, then you have to admire him, since the book is very good. OK, it couldn't qualify into the LA Quartet, but still. If you've read every book from the Black Dahlia and forwards and are thinking about reading works from other authors, don't, because this novel is in its structure a lot like those marvellous books and therefor an excellent choice for Ellroy fans. If you haven't read an Ellroy-book before, I suggest that you'd start with this one (Brown's Requiem) and thus giving yourself a concrete foundation and a greater reading experiece when going on to read the LA Quartet.