Perfidia: A novel Audiobook

Quotes

• “Perfidia is a brilliant, breakneck ride. Nobody except James Ellroy could pull this off. He doesn’t merely write—he ignites and demolishes.”

  — Carl Hiaasen, New York Times bestselling author

• “Depicts with frightening authenticity how those innocent of crimes are knowingly framed in the interest of the almighty ‘greater good.’"

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Shows us the war on the home front as we have never seen it before. The result is both pure, unadulterated Ellroy and a darkly compelling deconstruction of the recent American past.”

  — Washington Post

• “A powerful roar of a story with wonderfully flawed characters and a richly conceived plot.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle

• “Ellroy successfully spins a drug-alcohol-and-nefarious-deeds-fueled wartime web of double-dealing betrayal, insidious activities, and gruesome atrocities…The narrative is tautly held together by the ongoing police procedural and by several primary characters.”

  — Boston Globe

• “A historical novel, stippled with authentic details of that not-very-innocent era, disguised as a first-rate mystery novel.”

  — Miami Herald

• It is welcome news that Ellroy’s latest effort, Perfidia, returns home, sliding in as a prequel to the L.A. Quartet, set in the previous decade. Ellroy’s revisionist impulse is to complicate the patriotic unity of the wartime years much as he undid the myth of placid postwar Los Angeles. . . . What lies ahead, as Ellroy presses deeper into the war years, is anyone’s guess, but like his protagonists, he is driven by a paradoxical obsession: to keep on digging up dark memories of the city, in the hope of rising above the psychic traumas of the past—not reborn, but newly wise.

  — Atlantic

• If Ellroy’s bitter visions entice you, Perfidia will take you once again to the underbelly of American history. . . . You will dive into Perfidia with a shiver that is equal parts anticipation and fear—because you know it's going to get very dark very fast. . . . Ellroy’s singular style has been described as jazzlike or telegraphic; here it is insomniac, hallucinogenic, nightmarish.

  — Tampa Bay Times

• “Big, brash and overpowering, this will appeal to fans of Ellroy's terse, lurid style.

  — Arizona Republic, Book Pick of the Month

• Ellroy has a way of giving gravitas to ugliness and making brutality beautiful. . . . To see him operating this way, full of power and totally in his comfort zone, is an awesome thing to behold. His LA might not be a city of angels, but the devils he conjures up tell one hell of a tale. . . . [Perfidia is] epic in its depth and evocation of an ugly time and an awful place that, with its sheen of youth and beauty, is too often made glossy and innocent in our memories.

  — NPR

• A great read. . . . Perfidia is a murder mystery, a subversive historical novel, and a dark meditation on power, politics, race and justice.

  — Seattle Times

• “Densely plotted and fast on its feet. . . . [A] sinister and wildly entertaining universe.

  — Dallas Morning News

• [The L.A. Quartet] may be the ne plus ultra of noir, grittier than Chandler, more operatic than Hammett, and more violent even than Cain. . . . Ellroy whittles [his characters’] thoughts and actions into sentences the way others do shivs—lean, brutalist, and intended to puncture, to penetrate.

  — Interview magazine

• Compelling. . . . A triumphant return to the violent fictional world where he started—1940s Los Angeles.

  — Evening Standard (London)

• There has never been a writer like James Ellroy. Since the Eighties, in novels such as L.A. Confidential and The Cold Six Thousand, he has been making real a secret world behind the official history of America, where bad girls mingle with very bad men, and the designs of murderers, cops, mobsters, movie stars and politicians can be equally callous, equally deadly. He melds racial invective, street slang, hepcat jazz talk, junkie jive and scandal-rag rants into prose of controlled intensity, and to enter it is to experience a vivid eyeball rush of recognition.

  — The Telegraph (London)

• “Perfidia brings the two sides of his work together: the period crime-writing of LA Quartet, with its highlighting of police misdemeanours, and the wider politico-historical concerns of his subsequent Underworld USA trilogy.

  — The Guardian (London), “Essential New Fiction”

• Masterful storytelling on an enormous scale. Nobody does it like Ellroy.

  — LitReactor

• [Perfidia] is a war novel like no other. It’s complicated, and the author wouldn’t have it any other way. There's no telling the good guys from the bad in Ellroy’s Los Angeles, because there are no good guys. . . . Ellroy is not only back in form—he’s raised the stakes.

  — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

• A return to the scene of Ellroy’s greatest success and a triumphant return to form. . . . His character portrayals have never been more nuanced or—dare we say it—sympathetic. . . . A disturbing, unforgettable, and inflammatory vision of how the men in charge respond to the threat of war. It’s an ugly picture, but just try looking away.

  — Booklist, starred review

• A sprawling, uncompromising epic of crime and depravity.

  — Publishers Weekly

• “James Ellroy’s Perfidia reveals sides of the City of the Angels never disclosed in visitor’s guides. The novel is told from the perspectives of four different characters…A rich panoramic novel from an author who can be justly compared to both Thomas Pynchon and Raymond Chandler.”

  — Barnes&Noble.com, editorial review

• “A return to the scene of Ellroy’s greatest success and a triumphant return to form…His character portrayals have never been more nuanced or—dare we say it—sympathetic…A disturbing, unforgettable, and inflammatory vision of how the men in charge respond to the threat of war. It’s an ugly picture, but just try looking away.”

  — Booklist (starred review)

• “Though it pivots on the Pearl Harbor attack, this worm’s-eye view from thoroughly corrupt Los Angeles is a war novel like no other. It’s complicated, and the author wouldn’t have it any other way…The plot follows a tick-tock progression over the course of three weeks, in which ‘dark desires sizzle’ and explode with a furious climax.Ellroy is not only back in form—he’s raised the stakes.”

  — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

• “Ellroy launches his second L.A. Quartet with a sprawling, uncompromising epic of crime and depravity, with admirable characters few and far between. The action spans about three weeks during December 1941…This is as good a sample of Ellroy as any for newcomers, and old hands will find new perspectives on old characters intriguing”

  — Publishers Weekly

• “Narrator Craig Wasson’s approach to Ellroy’s new historical novel reflects the testosterone one would expect of a WWII-era Los Angeles police department or a crowded, sweaty boxing match. Wasson delivers Ellroy’s clipped sentences in varying tones with exacting emphasis. Accents ranging from working-class Irish to upper-class Boston roll off his tongue with ease as he deftly transitions between them. His best skill is his impression of a radio broadcaster. He fully delivers the sound of 1940s radio as the host preaches his message with all the intensity of the extremist he is. A masterful performance all around. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”

  — AudioFile