Suicide Hill (Sound Library) [Audio CD]

James Ellroy (Author), L. J. Ganser (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2006 | Series: Sound Library

Publisher's Weekly says Suicide Hill is a book that "hurtles along with almost equal gore and slapstick ... L.A.'s sleazy sides are brilliantly drawn ... Ellroy can't write a dull line." Reissue.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At one point in Ellroy's new mystery, a character wonders if the world is "nothing but wimps, pimps, psychos and sex fiends," and by the end of this book the reader wonders, too. Estranged from his wife and daughters and on the verge of forced early retirement, L.A.P.D. Sgt. Lloyd Hopkins is assigned to "liaise" with the FBI in investigating bank robberies in which the doxies of philandering bank managers have been held hostage. Hopkins's "hot-dogging" investigative methods blur the lines between good guys and bad guys, and by the final series of bloody climaxes almost everybody seems psycho. The book hurtles along with almost equal gore and slapstick, L.A.'s sleazy sides are brilliantly drawn and if the ending is a bit melodramatic readers will have had their money's worth. Ellroy (Because the Night can't write a dull line.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"His spare noir style . . . hits like a cleaver but . . . is honed like a scalpel." –Chicago Tribune

"Nobody in this generation matches the breadth and depth of James Ellroy's way with noir." –The Detroit News

“One of the great American writers of our time.” –Los Angeles Times

"Our best living mystery writer. . . . Literate, suspenseful, honest. . . . His pages crackle with maniac energy. . . . Ellroy captures the vocabulary, the rituals, the smells and rhythms and colors of real people living on the edge. . . . Nobody since Chandler has evoked so perfectly the seamy side of LA. " –Austin Chronicle --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: BBC Audiobooks (July 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0792740114
• ISBN-13: 978-0792740117
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,000,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the acclaimed L.A. Qurtet - The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz, as well as the Underworld USA trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover. He is the author of one work of non-fiction, The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women. Ellroy lives in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars suicide hill - best of three, January 28, 2004

By 

declan (ireland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Suicide Hill (Hardcover)

I read this as the last of three in the paperback edition of the Lloyd Hopkins series, and found it the best - unusual, since at that stage, one can normally see through the plot and the characters. The Llloyd Hopkins character in the first two books, particularly the first, seems a little unreal, but in Suicide Hill he has graduated to semi vetera nstatus, and his hard man view on life is more plausible. Also, the plot has some unusual twists and turns, and actually keeps you riveted right to the end - unlike the earlier two, where you can see the end of the plot from several chapters earlier.
As usual, all of the sleazy underside of LA is well exposed, along with its hip language and slick turns of phrase - to the degree that Ellroy can well assume the mantle of a latter day Dashiel Hammett. The bad guy characters are a little more developed and more believable than in the earlier Hopkins novels, particularly the relationship between the Garcia brothers, which generates a degree of empathy for real life brothers.
Worth reading - but do read the first two in the trilogy, just to save the best till last

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Suicide Hill, June 4, 2010

By 

Harry Bosch's wife (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Suicide Hill (Paperback)

Loved this early (1980s) Ellroy novel. A recommend especially if you are an Ellroy fan.