Tom Lynch

The master of Los Angeles noir takes on Chicago this week with "Destination Morgue!" In a brand-new paperback of shorts, Ellroy compiles fiction and nonfiction about the dead, the alive, the obsessed and the unsolved. In a great combination of real sleaze--see the bit on Robert Blake--and Ellroy-invented slime, the bestselling novelist sees the world in lush black-and-white, with warm gunshots and smoke-filled offices. He introduces a new character--a young, piss-filled detective with a sweet eye for a Hollywood starlet--in three never-before-published individual novellas that close the book with twelve-gauge force. He even throws in memoir with his appropriately titled piece, "Where I Get My Weird Shit," discussing his mother's murder and his dad's drunkenness. What does the Demon Dog have planned for his night at Barbara's? It's all very hush-hush.

James Ellroy discusses "Destination Morgue!" on October 12 at Barbara's Bookstore, 1218 South Halsted, (312)413-2665, at 7:30pm. Free.

(2004-10-06)

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