(1982) Clandestine develops one of the fundamental building blocks of Ellroy's work: romanticism. Set in Los Angeles in the 1950s

(1984) A genius psychiatrist (of course all of Ellroy's antagonists are geniuses) coerces gullible patients to perform mostly random acts of violence

(1986) Ellroy's allegorical autobiography. Ellroy abandons the multiple perspective narrative formula he used in the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy to present a presumably shocking first person.

(1988) Ellroy takes on homophobia in the 50's. Every novel leading up to the Big Nowhere, seems experimental in contrast. With this book, Ellroy seemed to have found his stride. One of his best

(1992) Conclusion of the LA Quartet. When his editor asked Ellroy to shorten his 900 page work to 350, Ellroy did so by eliminating the verbs. Stylistically, it's the strangest prose Ellroy's written

(1995) BRILLIANT, Ellroy at his best. 'Intense and flamboyant . . . excellent. . . one emerges breathless, shaken and ready to change one's view of recent American history'

(1998) The Lloyd Hopkins trilogy in one single book. Includes Blood on the Moon, Because the Night and Suicide Hill.

(1999) A collection of Ellroy's true stories, including the only two unsolved murder cases on police file in California. Original novellas, "Hollywood Shakedown" and "Tijuana Mon Amour" are included

(2004) The fragments of memoir, and 3 stories, which make up Ellroy's Destination Morgue share the same high-octane nervous jabber, the same noir world of amphetamines, neon and women brutally killed