#79 in Crime & mystery
L.A. Confidential
- 496
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Our view
“L.A. Confidential” is James Ellroy’s dense, morally murky neo-noir of detectives, murder and conspiracy in Los Angeles. Some readers need time to settle into its clipped, staccato prose, then admire the intricate plot and a cast without a clean hero, while warning of the racism and homophobia of its world. Others lose track of the many characters in the middle. It is the third book of Ellroy’s “L.A. Quartet”.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
L.A. Confidential (1990) is a neo-noir novel by American writer James Ellroy, the third of his L.A. Quartet series. It is dedicated to Mary Doherty Ellroy. The epigraph is "A glory that costs everything and means nothing"—Steve Erickson.
Reading order · L.A. Quartet
Full order & progress →- The Black DahliaStart here
7.67.6 / 10 - The Big Nowhere
–Not ranked yet - L.A. ConfidentialThis book
7.87.8 / 10 - White Jazz
–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 76 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 34% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Crime & mystery average of 7.6. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 76 | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is L.A. Confidential?
It has 496 pages — longer than 83% of the ranked books in Crime & mystery.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Crime & mystery — with scores between 7.8 and 7.9, closest to this book.
