Blood's a Rover

The third novel in James Ellroy’s American Underworld trilogy opens in 1968 following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Wayne Tedrow is a former cop with chemistry skills and a checkered past. He serves as liaison to both Howard Hughes and the mob and looks for ways to atone for his sins while facilitating a casino scheme in the Dominican Republic. Wayne is monitored by Dwight Holly, a big brother figure and an FBI enforcer. Holly must figure out ways to placate his increasingly senile boss, J. Edgar Hoover, as well as sustain a tenuous relationship with an informant, leftist professor Karen Sifakis. Donald Crutchfield, a young private eye/peeping Tom, crosses paths with both men and finds himself knee-deep in assassination plots and international intrigue. The specter of a years-old emerald heist hangs over everything and the key to both past and present plots may be a mysterious knife-scarred woman named Joan.


Weighing in at 650-plus pages, Blood’s a Rover is not a quick read. It will also prove a daunting one for those not already familiar with Ellroy’s trademark style (multiple alternating narrators, highly fragmented sentences, faux-document inserts between chapters). Ellroy fans, on the other hand, will be pleased to know that Blood’s a Rover picks up right where The Cold Six Thousand left off. Wayne Tedrow is back and the contradictions that defined the character the first time around (a conscience and a sense of social responsibility coupled with a willingness to carry out a sinister agenda and a penchant for brutal acts) are expanded upon here. In fact, all of the leads are complex, dynamic characters with motivations that change over the course of the text – a little too rapidly in some instances. While the book oozes zeitgeist, the spirit of the times isn’t always a sufficient rationale for dramatic ideological shifts.


In spite of its length, this book really moves. The emerald heist forms the book’s central mystery and while pieces of it are easy to figure out early on, the complete picture will elude you until the end. Along the way, Blood’s a Rover juts out in dozens of different directions. Haitian rituals, Dominican politics, a Hoover/Nixon rivalry and Sonny Liston’s drug addiction are among the secondary threads. In lesser hands, this would seem unwieldy. Ellroy, however, manages to pull everything together – not seamlessly, but certainly convincingly.


The most ingenious thing about Blood’s a Rover is the way the structure mirrors the action. Just as revolution and radical change influence the book’s plot, an abandonment of the rigid alternating narrators and the inclusion of new perspectives in the later sections alter the book’s shape. It’s chaotic, confusing and utterly brilliant. Only the final chapter, set in the present, feels gimmicky.


With a gargantuan scope and a who’s who of late 60s/early 70s historical figures in the mix, Blood’s a Rover never fails to stir interest. The only thing separating it from greatness is a tighter grip on the author’s part on the chaos he depicts.


7.75/10