American Tabloid
James Ellroy · first published 1995 · ISBN 9780679403913
Three men working in the criminal underworld, the LAPD, and federal law enforcement intersect across the 1950s and into the Kennedy era. Ellroy braids together organized crime, the CIA, the mafia, FBI ambitions, and presidential corruption into a narrative that feels less like fiction than a secret history of post-war America.
On our lists
The Best Crime Novels of the 1990s
Ambition distinguishes this novel. Ellroy doesn't just solve a crime; he reimagines how power actually worked in twentieth-century America. The book treats criminal networks and government agencies as extensions of each other, pursuing the same goals through different means. TIME magazine named it Novel of the Year.