Perfidia

James Ellroy (Get this book)
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. There's no telling the good guys from the bad in Ellroy's Los Angeles, because there are no good guys. The major distinction between cops and criminals is that the former have the power to frame the latter and kill the innocent with impunity, which they do without conscience or moral compunction, often in complicity with the government and even the Catholic Church. With his outrageously oversized ambition, Ellroy has announced that this sprawling but compelling novel is the beginning of a Second L.A. Quartet. The plot follows a tick-tock progression over the courseof 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