(pb; 1984: Book One of the L.A. Noir/Harold Lloyd trilogy)
From the inside flap
“Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins can’t stand music, or any
loud sounds. He’s got a beautiful wife, but he can’t get enough of other women.
And instead of bedtime stories, he regales his daughters with bloody crime
stories. He’s a thinking man’s cop with a dark past and an obsessive drive to
hunt down monsters who prey on the innocent.
“Now there’s something
haunting him. He sees a connection in a series of increasingly gruesome murders
of women committed over a period of twenty years. Hopkins will dump all the
rules and risk his career to make the final link and get the killer.”
Review
This edited review was originally published this site on September 20, 2006. That review has since been deleted.
Lloyd Hopkins, a womanizing, high-strung supercop who's
turned his traumas into an unhinged and noble quest to “protect innocence,”
stumbles onto the bloody work of a rhyme-minded mass murderer. The victims are
almost always women; the killings are sexual, reflecting, in a warped/inverse
doppelgänger way, Lloyd's obsessive notions about women.
Racism, sacrifice, murder, redemption, rape and bad poetry
abound here, theme- and otherwise. This politically incorrect novel is
excellent, memorable, and often coarse. Author Ellroy isn't trying to sell us
prettiness; he's showing us blunt, surly veracities.
Followed by Because the Night.
Those who’ve seen the
below film version, Cop (1988), should note that the novel has a
considerably different ending than the novel. Even if you ‘ve seen the film,
the book is a raw, worthwhile and stunning work, one worth reading.
#
A film version of Blood on the Moon, retitled Cop, was released stateside in March 1988.
James B. Harris scripted and directed it.
James Woods played Lloyd Hopkins. Lesley Ann Warren played Kathleen McCarthy. Charles Durning played Arthur “Dutch” Peltz. Charles Haid played Delbert “Whitey” Haines. Raymond J. Barry played
Captain Fred Gaffney. Randi Brooks played Joanie Pratt.
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