American Tabloid

A history of the early 1960s in America, leading up to the assassination of JFK, seen through the eyes of the mobsters and criminals, crooked cops, spies, and sleazos who power the machines of history.

A comprehensive romp through the underbelly of American crime and politics (and you might, after reading this book, wonder what’s the difference), it’s a novel about characters you don’t like—but they’re vivid and fascinating.

Much more than a gritty gangster novel, it’s a tale about the people in history’s shadows, and, ultimately, history and the “never innocent” America itself. 


With American Tabloid, Ellroy’s ambitions as a writer reached an epic scale. He was still writing historical fiction, but now he embraced a national landscape, leaving behind the LA setting he had mostly confined himself to in his earlier novels. American Tabloid was the first novel in his Underworld USA trilogy, covering the events that led to President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963. It’s a stunning work of historical fiction that led me to reexamine my views of American history.

For brilliant audacity, I know of no one who tells such pitch-black tales as audaciously or brilliantly as James Ellroy. Hard to pick a “best” from among a canon that includesThe Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere, yet Tabloid, with its fearless reimagining of the skullduggery leading to John Kennedy’s assassination gets my vote. JFK, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, and Sam Ciancanna are among the flesh and blood characters mingling with Ellroy’s familiar fictional hoods, bent cops, sleazy newspapermen, and easy women. Ellroy’s unrelenting rat-a-tat style—“The dope hit home. Big Howard went slack-faced”—takes some getting used… show more.

One of the masters of Los Angeles historical crime (along with Walter Mosely), Ellroy has written numerous outstanding novels, but my favorite is American Tabloid, which I think is Ellroy at the absolute top of his game.

Pete Bondurant, former cop and current freelance enforcer, troubleshooter, and troublemaker, just can’t keep his nose out of trouble. That trouble includes the FBI and the mob, but that’s just the start. The tendrils stretch from Cuba to the White House to the office of Howard Hughes. A sprawling, yet tightly plotted novel, American Tabloid is a masterpiece of crime fiction.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but this is arguably the most believable book on this list. An account of the JFK assassination, following three fictional characters who are mixed up in it. It's a true epic of conspiracies and double-crosses, gangsters and federal agents, written in Ellroy's unique staccato style.