Mr Ellroy's distinctive on-page voice is part 1950s jive-talking jazzman, part high-minded seeker after eternal truths.

ECONOMIST: The man that mother made

Mr Ellroy, incidentally, has kept the cover designers at Random House working hard as well.

ECONOMIST: The man that mother made

What Mr Ellroy gains in surface sizzle he loses in emotional resonance.

ECONOMIST: The man that mother made

Mr Ellroy's day-to-day life seems to involve little apart from writing and promoting his books, and lying around in the dark fretting about women.

ECONOMIST: The man that mother made

This Brian De Palma movie about the notorious Betty Short murder case, from 1947, which was the basis for a 1987 novel by James Ellroy, suffers from rampant allusiveness to other movies set in Los Angeles.

NEWYORKER: The Black Dahlia