L.A. Confidential

De: James Ellroy

Narrado por: Craig Wasson

Duración: 17 h y 35 m

Resumen del Editor

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.

©1990 James Ellroy (P)2015 Random House Audio

twistier than movie!

Plot is more intricate and twistier than movie. Wasson gives a top notch performance as usual!

LA Confidential

A thrilling and gripping story. Violent, intense and intriguing. The story stalls out slightly in and around part 3 but accelerates towards an exciting and shocking ending. Craig Wasson is brilliant as the reader.

Wow! Author, author! Amazing!

This just blew me away! From the text to the reading. A 1 performance! Bravo!

great book live the story well read

I know that it's clichéd but the book is way better than the movie well performed well read definitely worth your time

A modern pulp crime classic

For newcomers and anyone already familiar with Ellroy's classic sprawling crime novel, this audio version of L.A. Confidential is worth a listen. Wasson tackles author's curt, biting style expertly in narration and highlights the three main characters' complexities in a way the movie doesn't come close to touching. Some of his characters come across as stereotypical voices - Inez Soto - for instance, while others lapse into unintentional comedy: see Yorkin and Jack Vincennes as Jack Nicholson's The Joker, Sid Hudgins as Snaglepuss smoking a pack a minute and the Lucky Charms leprechaun appearing as Dudley Smith. Still, Wasson does a good job of helping Ellroy's sometimes too-fast moving riffs come across as plot development. Audible should consider changing the thumbnail for this title - I can only imagine how much better the original version narration by film actor David Strathairn, who originally played Pierce Patchett, is comparatively.

Book is as good as the movie, just more complex!

This was a great book for my 6 days a week walk with each disc being a great way to both timing the walk and making the time pass so quickly.

Excellent

Very fast paced story. The narration was fantastic. It is darker and grittier than the movie.

If you loved the movie, you’re going to love this!

The novel is much more involved and complex than its remarkable film version. It features same characters, but with far more complex with different storylines. Many changes to the overall plot make the story fresh and interesting, including A much different solution and ending.

The movie is better…

I’ve been going through the LA quintet by Ellroy and while I enjoyed listening to LA Confidential, it’s twisting storyline often left me struggling to keep up with all the characters and plots. The long chapters of ‘newspaper articles’ were largely unnecessary and ground the pacing of the book to a halt. The movie does a great job of building a coherent narrative out of this overstuffed book. All that said, I’m looking forward to White Jazz and the conclusion of this epic LAPD noire!

A nasty piece of work that I couldn’t put down

Violent sociopaths, bigots, liars, and perverts - and those are the cops!

None of them motivated by the public good, only revenge, fame, and advancement. The only upside is that the people they jail, beat up, kill, manipulate and blackmail are sometimes as bad as they are. It’s a thesaurus of slurs and an encyclopedia of every kind of victimization you can imagine.

I read a little about James Ellroy and he apparently lived through a lot of this stuff in his early life and is clearly trying to exorcise some demons. (The psycho-sexual Oedipal content makes more sense in that context.)

That said, it’s a hell of a vibe and a gripping read.

If you’ve seen the movie, there are plenty of angles and subplots in here that were cut for time so you’ll get something new, but it leads to a sillier ending than the film. Personally, 16 hours is a long time for something this sordid. I couldn’t put it down, but was kind of relieved for it to be over.