A Body Without a Soul

The 2nd book in Ellroy’s LA Quartet is the only one which hasn’t yet been made into a movie or have one in development.  It’s a slow read but well worth it.

Set in the first few weeks of 1950, Ellis Loew again thinks he’s found his ticket to the DA’s office; this time, it’s a red crusade.  Purely coincidentally, that investigation will help Howard Hughes and other studio owners get rid of one union and replace it with the Mickey Cohen-controlled Teamsters; not that officials with the LAPD or DA’s office would improperly help studio bigwigs or gangsters, of course.

Actually, the LAPD won’t help Cohen right now; he was recently involved in the Brenda Allen scandal which disgraced the department and is currently on the outs with the LAPD but still protected by the Sheriff’s Department.  When a joint LAPD/LASD investigation is started into a series of brutal homicides, that leads to a certain amount of tension.

This is the first appearance of Dudley Smith, the big scary Scotsman, in the LA Quartet, although he apparently also appeared in an earlier novel.

The plot is extraordinarily complicated, and it’s nearly impossible to summarize in an understandable way, or to say anything non-spoilerish about at all