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The Enchanters
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • James Ellroy—Demon Dog of American Letters—goes straight to the tragic heart of 1962 Hollywood with a wild riff on the Marilyn Monroe death myth in an astonishing, behind-the-headlines crime epic.
Los Angeles, August 4, 1962. The city broils through a midsummer heat wave. Marilyn Monroe ODs. A B-movie starlet is kidnapped. The overhyped LAPD overreacts. Chief Bill Parker’s looking for some getback. The Monroe deal looks like a moneymaker. He calls in Freddy Otash.
The freewheeling Freddy O: tainted ex-cop, defrocked private eye, dope fiend, and freelance extortionist. A man who lives by the maxim “Opportunity is love.” Freddy gets to work. He dimly perceives Marilyn Monroe’s death and the kidnapped starlet to be a poisonous riddle that only he has the guts and the brains to untangle. We are with him as he tears through all those who block his path to the truth. We are with him as he penetrates the faux-sunshine of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and the shuck of Camelot. We are with him as he falters, and grasps for love beyond opportunity. We are with him as he tracks Marilyn Monroe’s horrific last charade through a nightmare L.A. that he served to create — and as he confronts his complicity and his own raging madness.
It’s the Summer of ’62, baby. Freddy O’s got a hot date with history. The savage Sixties are ready to pop. It’s just a shot away.
The Enchanters is a transcendent work of American popular fiction. It is James Ellroy at his most crazed, brilliant, provocative, profanely hilarious, and stop-your-heart tender. It is a luminous psychological drama and an unparalleled thrill ride. It is, resoundingly, the great American crime novel.
Critic reviews
"In Ellroy's latest audiobook, former cop Freddy Otash finds himself jammed up. He's investigating the death of Marilyn Monroe but has police officials, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, and a swarm of others--actors, a psychologist, and people from the seedier side of Los Angeles--getting in his way. Craig Wasson relishes his narration, bringing a high level of emotion when needed. A few fight scenes are especially well done." (AudioFile)
"James Ellroy, the neo-noir eminence of L.A. crime fiction, is back, with his favorite snake, Fred Otash, in tow. . . . And he sure can shoulder a novel. . . . To pick up a James Ellroy novel in the year 2023 is to know the score. . . . [Ellroy’s] fiction, at its most potent, is driven less by plot than by ritual. He has been canonized and censured; he writes now, in his mid-seventies, on a plane beyond the exigencies of either, enjoying a rare kind of freedom.” —The New Yorker
“James Ellroy's The Enchanters is classic Ellroy: a filthy, boozy, fast-paced, violent romp through the history and important figures of early 1960s Los Angeles, all told in Otash's frantic voice. . . . Ellroy keeps things moving at breakneck speed at all times, which is a fantastic feat considering this is a 448-page novel that delves deep into a plethora of scenes and seamlessly mixes fact and fiction. The trick to it is Ellroy's incomparable style; fast, punchy, telegrammatic prose that demands to be read quickly and that flows like an enraged river.” —NPR
“[The Enchanters] blends the real and imagined into the kind of atmospheric psychosexual spectacle fans have come to expect from the grand master of L.A.-noir. . . . Thoroughly crooked yet unexpectedly appealing, Otash … is a fixer with an eidetic memory who operates in the shadowy fringes of the west coast glamour factory. . . . The plot of The Enchanters is sprawling yet intricate, a riveting series of events made all the more vivid by the precision of the details — the heavy wiretap surveillance opens up a prominent peripheral cast of hangers on, psychiatrists, pornographers and other petty criminals that swirl around the edges of the scene. Ellroy’s writing matches its sensational subject. . . . Filtered through Freddy’s drug- and booze-addled but brilliant mind, the novel is vibrant and vivid, with a pungent whiff of decay. . . . Otash is a fascinating guide. . . . Carnivalesque—literary roller coaster meets Tilt-a-Whirl.” —The Washington Post
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Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.
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intriguing but skip if triggered by child abuse
- By Amazon Customer on 05-16-19
By: Colleen Hoover
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The Justice
- By: James Patterson, Aaron Cooley
- Narrated by: Sanaa Lathan, David Rasche, Susan Kelechi Watson, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Original Recording
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Justice Beth Garner (Sanaa Lathan) just landed the appointment of a lifetime—a seat on the Supreme Court. Now a mysterious company is blackmailing her for her vote on a landmark case. Caught up in the checkered past of her hero and mentor, Chief Justice Clayton Erlenborn, Beth must cunningly maneuver through a dangerous web of secrets, deception, and cold-blooded murder. Armed with only her moral compass and unflinching nerve, she’s up against a sinister world full of undercover agents, domestic terrorists, and black ops assassins—all of whom want her to comply or die.
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One of the best
- By Jackie on 02-25-24
By: James Patterson, and others
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Home Is Where the Bodies Are
- By: Jeneva Rose
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, Cassandra Campbell, Brittany Pressley, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before. While going through their parent’s belongings, the siblings stumble upon a collection of home videos and decide to revisit those happier memories.
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No Twists
- By Megan M. on 05-02-24
By: Jeneva Rose
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The Rip
- By: Holly Craig
- Narrated by: Carly Foxx, Shalom Brune-Franklin
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Luxury villas on hot white sand, views for miles over turquoise water. Flawless hostess Penny gathers guests to an island for her husband’s birthday celebrations. But she soon regrets inviting self-obsessed Eloise. When a child vanishes on the night of the party, their perfect island weekend is ripped apart. Even paradise harbours murky secrets… Has he been taken? Has he drowned? In the panic to find any trace, Penny casts about for someone to blame—even if that person is her own daughter, Rosie. Even clear waters descend to pitch black.
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Intriguing, Engaging, AND BEST NARATORS EVER
- By Hadassah on 03-12-24
By: Holly Craig
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The Worst of You
- By: Sarah Richards
- Narrated by: Sarah Desjardins
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Original Recording
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In The Worst of You, just-wed architects Timo and Nia flee a murder scene, setting in motion a chain reaction of lies and betrayals that threaten to unravel everything they have built together. Twisted and propulsive, this thriller is told from the alternating perspectives of the couple and those close to them on Williwaw Island, each with their own motive to use the outcome of the murder case to their advantage. When a huge storm sweeps up the coast, trapping everyone on tiny Williwaw Island, it’s a race against time—and the elements — to stop the murderer from striking again.
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Needs a good editor!!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-08-24
By: Sarah Richards
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One of Us Is Dead
- By: Jeneva Rose
- Narrated by: Andi Arndt, Hillary Huber, Elizabeth Evans, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Opulence. Sex. Betrayal…sometimes friendship can be deadly. Meet the women of Buckhead—a place of expensive cars, huge houses, and competitive friendships. Who amongst these women will be clever enough to survive Buckhead—and who will wind up dead? They say that friendships can be complex, but no one said it could ever be this deadly.
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Great mystery. Sexually graphic.
- By Sue on 09-04-22
By: Jeneva Rose
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The Crimes of Dorian Gray
- By: Arvind Ethan David
- Narrated by: Lexi Underwood, Neil Brown Jr., Richard Schiff, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 42 mins
- Original Recording
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This gripping fictional true crime podcast delves into the story of the enigmatic Dorian Gray, a vigilante who changed the world, rewriting history in the blood of her victims. Her targets were the titans of their era—billionaires, movie stars, politicians. Dorian said they had one thing in common: they had all committed crimes against women. They were rapists, abusers, master manipulators. Dorian left evidence of their heinous offenses with their bodies, and then she vanished without a trace.
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The plot
- By Falfon K Smith Jr. on 04-24-24
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Husband and Wife
- By: K. L. Slater
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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My husband and I are fighting for our lives in hospital after a terrible car accident. But despite my pain, all I can think about is what our families will find behind our front door. The scarf that has been all over the news, belonging to a dead young woman with honey-coloured hair. I have to speak to the police before my husband can. I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, but when I hear my wife talking to the police, accusing me of the murder of an innocent woman, a cold fear grips me. I know I’ve got a temper.
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Good twists
- By Susan Wiegert on 12-25-23
By: K. L. Slater
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We Play Games
- By: Sarah A. Denzil
- Narrated by: Billie Piper, Dan Stevens, Shane Zaza, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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When the rules turn deadly, winning is everything. Only available from Audible, a gripping psychological thriller from the author of Silent Child, Saving April, and The Broken Ones. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Lisa Jewell and Paula Hawkins. The perfect couple. The perfect marriage. The perfect game. Effie and Ben May have everything. Success. Beauty. Glamour. But beneath the charming smiles and expensive clothes, a twisted game is in progress. A game for which only they know the rules.
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Two hours left
- By Cyndi on 01-17-24
By: Sarah A. Denzil
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On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
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Dig. The Demon Dog gets down with a new book of scenes from America’s capital of kink: Los Angeles. Fourteen pieces, some fiction, some nonfiction, all true enough to be admissible as state’s evidence, and half of it in print for the first time. And every one of them bearing the James Ellroy brand of mayhem, machismo, and hollow-nose prose.
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It is December 6, 1941. America stands at the brink of World War II. Last hopes for peace are shattered when Japanese squadrons bomb Pearl Harbor. Los Angeles has been a haven for loyal Japanese-Americans—but now, war fever and race hate grip the city and the Japanese internment begins.
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This Storm
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January '42. L.A. reels behind the shock of Pearl Harbor. Local Japanese residents are rounded up and slammed behind bars. Massive thunderstorms hit the city. A body is unearthed in Griffith Park. The cops tag it a routine dead-man job. They're wrong. It's an early-warning signal of chaos. There's a murderous fire and a gold heist. There's Fifth Column treason on American soil. There are homegrown Nazis, Commies, and race racketeers. It's populism ascendant. There's two dead cops in a dive off the jazz-club strip. And three men and one woman have a hot date with history.
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Pulp. Mucho Pulp. Too much pulp.
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We are behind, and below, the scenes of JFK's presidential election, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination - in the underworld that connects Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, DC....
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On January 15, 1947, the tortured body of a beautiful young woman was found in a vacant lot in Hollywood. Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, a young Hollywood hopeful, had been brutally murdered. Her murder sparked one of the greatest manhunts in California history.
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Great naration
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Destination: Morgue!
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Dig. The Demon Dog gets down with a new book of scenes from America’s capital of kink: Los Angeles. Fourteen pieces, some fiction, some nonfiction, all true enough to be admissible as state’s evidence, and half of it in print for the first time. And every one of them bearing the James Ellroy brand of mayhem, machismo, and hollow-nose prose.
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Noir in the 21st century
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Clandestine
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Fred Underhill is a young cop on the rise in Los Angeles in the early 1950s - a town blinded to its own grime by Hollywood glitter; a society nourished by newspaper lies that wants its heroes all-American and squeaky clean. A chance to lead on a possible serial killing is all it takes to fuel Underhill's reckless ambition - and it propels him into a dangerous alliance with certain mad and unstable elements of the law enforcement hierarchy. When the case implodes with disastrous consequences, it is Fred Underhill who takes the fall. His life is in ruins, his promising future suddenly a dream of the past.
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A rough draft for better Noir that will come
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In disgrace after a badly handled arrest in New Orleans, Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins is assigned as a liaison officer to an FBI investigation of a series of diabolical and clever bank robberies. Three men have done their homework: they choose bank managers who are having affairs, kidnap their girlfriends, and force the managers to open the banks early.
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Try this title for a change of pace
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My Dark Places
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In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself.
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Haughting. I did cry. A good cry.
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Hollywood Nocturnes
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Nobody plays accordion like Dick Contino. His skilled fingers can find beauty in even the schmaltziest Borscht Belt favorites, and with his matinee-idol looks he could be a real star. Right now, though, he’s slumming it as the headliner in a Grade Z teenybopper picture called Daddy-O. He’s too good for this movie, and finishing it is going to take him to a very dark place. Daddy-O and Dick Contino are both real, their stories dredged out of the past by James Ellroy, a master of historical crime fiction. In Dick Contino's Blues he takes us to B-List Hollywood in 1957 - a time when movies were cheerful and dirty secrets lurked just off camera.
By: James Ellroy
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Blood on the Moon
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- Unabridged
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Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins can't stand music, or any loud sounds. He's got a beautiful wife, but he can't get enough of other women. And instead of bedtime stories, he regales his daughters with bloody crime stories. He's a thinking man's cop with a dark past and an obsessive drive to hunt down monsters who prey on the innocent. Now, there's something haunting him. He sees a connection in a series of increasingly gruesome murders of women committed over a period of 20 years.
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Looking for new answers
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The Hilliker Curse
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The legendary crime writer gives us a raw, brutally candid memoir - as high intensity and as riveting as any of his novels - about his obsessive search for “atonement in women". The year was 1958. Jean Hilliker had divorced her fast-buck hustler husband and resurrected her maiden name. Her son, James, was 10 years old. He hated and lusted after his mother and “summoned her dead". She was murdered three months later. The Hilliker Curse is a predator’s confession, a treatise on guilt and on the power of malediction, and above all, a cri de cœur.
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Veering toward Vacancy
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By: James Ellroy
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Brown's Requiem
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Fritz Brown’s L.A. - and his life - are masses of contradictions, like stirring chorales sung for the dead. A less-than-spotless former cop with a drinking problem - a private-eye-cum-repo man with a taste for great music - he has been known to wallow in the grime beneath the Hollywood glitter. But Fritz Brown’s life is about to change, thanks to the appearance of a racist psycho who flashes too much cash for a golf caddie and who walked away clean from a multiple murder rap.
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it's ok
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By: James Ellroy
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Jack might be a polished, Harvard-educated lawyer on paper, but everyone in the down-at-the-heels, if picturesque, village of Onset, Massachusetts, knows his real job: moving people on the run from powerful enemies. The family business—co-managed with his father, a retired spy—is smooth sailing, as they fill up Onset’s holiday homes during the town’s long, drowsy off-season and help clients shed their identities in preparation for fresh starts.
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Title Misleading
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Brooklyn Crime Novel
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On the streets of 1970s Brooklyn, a daily ritual goes down: the dance. Money is exchanged, belongings surrendered, power asserted. The promise of violence lies everywhere, a currency itself. For these children, Black, brown, and white, the street is a stage in shadow. And in the wings hide the other players: parents; cops; renovators; landlords; those who write the headlines, the histories, and laws; those who award this neighborhood its name. The rules appear obvious at first. But in memory’s prism, criminals and victims may seem to trade places.
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Not Lethem’s Best
- By Dr. Flower on 01-20-24
By: Jonathan Lethem
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Every Man a Menace
- By: Patrick Hoffman
- Narrated by: David DeSantos
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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San Francisco is about to receive the biggest delivery of MDMA to hit the West Coast in years. Raymond Gaspar, just out of prison, is sent to the city to check in on the increasingly erratic dealer expected to take care of distribution. In Miami, the man responsible for getting the drugs across the Pacific has just met the girl of his dreams - a woman who can't seem to keep her story straight. And thousands of miles away in Bangkok, someone farther up the supply chain is about to make a phone call that will put all their lives at risk.
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Every man a menace
- By D Durdines on 07-29-18
By: Patrick Hoffman
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Devil in a Blue Dress
- An Easy Rawlins Mystery
- By: Walter Mosley
- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.
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Beware of Mysterious Sexy Women with Big Suitcases
- By Jefferson on 02-13-11
By: Walter Mosley
What listeners say about The Enchanters
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael Dean
- 11-17-23
Epic and electric
James Ellroy's electric prose rendered with verve and gusto by Craig Wasson. An epic vision of early 60s LA in all its pulp glory. Ellroy is the master crime novelist. Loved it!
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- Elijah
- 11-24-23
Ellroy’s Prose Crackles, Wasson’s deeply emotional performance
Craig Wasson, star of the ever underrated De Palma flick Body Double, hits this reading out of the park. The characterizations, the emotions he takes on & transmutes, all while slamming home Ellroy’s fastball web of jargon, fractured language and repetitious rhythms. This & Wasson’s version of Blood’s a Rover are not to be missed. I didn’t think I liked books on tape in general, especially not epics like latterday Ellroy, until I heard these.
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- Tom
- 01-09-24
Essential Ellroy
His evocation of Post-War L.A. may or may not be accurate but the Real-Life Characters seem on point. Hoffa, Eddie Fisher, Peter Lawford, Marilyn Monroe, L.A. Cops, JFK, and RFK all sound like their PR projections I remember.
All this wrapped up in the Ellroy-style Enchanted haze of booze, pills, smoke, brass-knuckles, and guns. Enjoyable trip to Pre-JFK America. Four Stars. ****
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- Mr Dangerous
- 09-30-23
Great to have Wasson back!
The 2nd book in the series is just okay with a fantastic backdrop. It just never quite got there for me. Solid just not quite great. first book was better.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-23-23
the old mastard still has it
like an old boxer waiting in the shadows he steps into the ring and delivers a masterpiece of chaos. For those James Ellroy loyalists it's Christmas morning.
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- GARY R ZION
- 10-25-23
Great Fun
A huge cast from the early 60’s of characters from the movie biz, the criminal underworld and the LA police. Lots of dope, sex and crime.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Stefan Filipovits
- 03-30-24
Noir with a pulse
I've always loved noir as a genre. Novels like "The Maltese Falcon", "Farewell, My Lovely", and "Double Indemnity" as well as films like "Out Of The Past", "Kiss Me Deadly", and "Touch Of Evil" always had a way of grabbing me and keeping me immersed. And how not? In a genre rife with femme-fatales, driven yet morally ambiguous protagonists, and labyrinthine plots, it was impossible for me not to become enamored with the dangerous allure of "noir" as we know it. Yet it wasn't until I first read James Ellroy that I became what addicts call a "lifer". His work opened up a world of visceral, gritty danger. His staccato prose, enthralling mysteries, implacable yet irreparably broken characters, and the palpable, simmering atmosphere he conjured up with his stories grabbed me (and many others) by the throat and never let us go. That said, I had begun to fear that "The Demon-Dog of American Letters" had lost a step. Some of his novels in recent years had seemingly begun to lose their focus and impact. "This Storm" in particular was tedious, desperately in need of another edit (or four), and had a plot that was practically incomprehensible. Fortunately, the reigning king of noir is back with a vengeance with "The Enchanters".
The story begins with "Widespread Panic" protagonist, and Hollywood's sleaziest private eye (i.e. shakedown artist), Freddy Otash getting word that America's biggest star, Marilyn Monroe, has been found dead. What looks to the outside world as an accidental overdose, or possible suicide, is to Freddy anything but. Otash had been investgating Monroe at the behest of Jimmy Hoffa in the hopes of taking some of the luster off the Kennedy's and Camelot. After months of surveillance, wiretaps, and almost banal brutality, Otash has seen how volatile, dangerous, and uncontrollable her life had become in the year leading up to her death. What follows is an investigation that takes Otash straight to the black heart of 1960's Hollywood like a shot of adrenaline. Like the Ellroy of old, the author gives "The Enchanters" a pace that grips you by the throat and squeezes. Political intrigue, Cold War paranoia, Hollywood exploitation, and casual violence abound. In “The Enchanters”, Ellroy plays with the conspiracies surrounding Monroe's death in much the same way he played with the JFK assassination conspiracies in "American Tabloid". He exhaustively studied the actual historical event and uses it as a jumping off point to craft a narrative that is entirely his. And while "American Tabloid" might be his finest work, "The Enchanters" is no less impressive, no less compelling, and no less engrossing.
History geeks and readers new to the Ellroy style might need to prepare themselves for a...let us be polite and say "less than reverential" look at historical figures like Monroe, Jack & Robert Kennedy, and many others, however. At this point, any practiced Ellroy reader is entirely cynical and jaded (myself included) and very well aware that "America was never innocent". If, however, you are new to the works of James Ellroy, do prepare yourself. The casual racism, sexism, homophobia (to say nothing of violence) of the setting are in abundance and so is Ellroy's own nihilistic sensibilities in regards to power and the people who wield it. This is not the reverential "icon of the silver screen" take on Monroe we’re all used to. Ellroy writes her as an exploited, mentally unstable, almost pathetic fantasist who is entirely in over her head and blind to the very real danger she's in. JFK is not written as the inspiring, noble, and progressive president most americans hold in such high esteem. Ellroy establishes him as a philandering, exploitative, hypocritical trust-fund baby. Even Otash himself, a real historical figure that Ellroy himself had met a time or two is not spared from a scalding characterization and the contempt the author feels for the man is palpable. This iconoclastic take on titanic figures of American history is not out of the ordinary for Ellroy however, and the characterizations never take the reader out of the novel.
"The Enchanters" is Ellroy at his very best. The story and mystery sucks the reader in and never lets them catch their breath. It's a story with despicable characters you cant help but follow, a mystery so captivating you won’t want to stop, and a gritty atmosphere so palpable you'll want to take a bleach-bath after you finish reading it. It is noir with a pulse….
And I loved every second of it.
If you enjoyed "The Enchanters" as much as I did and are looking for similar works, then definitely check out some of Ellroy’s earlier efforts like the aforementioned “American Tabloid" or "Widespread Panic". You might also enjoy “The Black Dahlia”, “L.A. Confidential”, or “Perfidia”. If however you’re looking to explore the dark side of old Hollywood some more, you might also appreciate “Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness” by William J Mann, “Helter Skelter” by Vincent Bugliosi, "The Garden On Sunset" by Martin Turnbull, or "The City of Angles" by Jonathan Leaf.
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- butwhatdoIknow
- 11-29-23
Ellroy is tired
A formerly rabid fan of Ellroy. Read every book. But the love affair has lost his spark. The man is rolling out pastiche, the narratives are tired, and what was fun now feels like a chore.
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