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The Cold Six Thousand
James Ellroy Book Review

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Plot Summary of The Cold Six Thousand
"Ellroy alternates three different points of view describing the 1963-1968 period, from the assassination of JFK until Robert Kennedy's murder. Firstly, there's Pete Bondurant's, a Canadian hitman working for the mob. Pete, with the help of the C.I.A., will organize a flourishing heroin traffic between the Vietnam and Las Vegas. The profits are used to buy rifles and guns for anticastro groups who are about to disembark in Cuba. Pete will also blackmail, for the mob, several Vegas politicians.

Then, there is Ward Littell's, a lawyer working for the mob, Howard Hughes and Edgar J. Hoover altogether. Ward secretly admires Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and tries to protect them from the F.B.I. intrigues and the mob. Ward is also the man who works out a deal between the billionaire Howard Hughes who wants to buy all the Vegas casinos and the U.S. mafia.

The third point of view is Wayne Tedrow's, an ex-chemist and Vegas cop whose wife has been raped and killed by Wendell Durfee, a black criminal. Tedrow is working now with Pete Bondurant for whom he synthesizes heroin in Saigon. He will also patronize the KKK subgroups in the deep South and feel the hate that will lead to Martin Luther King's assassination.

"

Daniel Staebler, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of The Cold Six Thousand
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot

Composition of Book
descript. of violence and chases - 10%
Planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 40%
Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 40%
How society works & physical descript. (people, objects, places) - 10%




Tone of story - very upbeat
Time/era of story: - 1960's-1970's
The crook is.... - stalking/killing innocents
Crime Thriller Yes
Mostly a criminal POV story Yes
General Crime (including known murderer) Yes
Who's the criminal enemy here? - militia/racists

Main Character
Gender - Male
Profession/status: - a lawyer creature
Age: - 40's-50's
Eccentric/Mental: Yes
Eccentric: - obsessed
How much violence does he/she use? - none
Ethnicity/Race - White/American
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - Male
Age: - 60's-90's
Eccentric: Yes - obsessed
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - an average amount
Motive of antagonist - revenge
The antagonists are: - FBI/CIA
How sensitive is this character? - hard edged
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters
Physique - healthy but a geeky weakling

Setting
United States Yes
The US: - West
Asia/Pacific Yes
Asian country: - Southeast Asia
City? Yes
City: - Los Angeles - dangerous
Misc setting - scientific labs

Style
Person - mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death? - very gorey references to deaths/dead bodies and torture
How many deaths? - 8 or more
Sex Yes
What kind of sex: - actual description of sex - descript. of male nudity
Unusual forms of death - perforation--bullets
Unusual form of death? Yes
Amount of dialog - little dialog
Most similar books to The Cold Six Thousand
Stronghold by Stanley Ellin
Fuzz by Ed McBain
The Thomas Berryman Number by James Patterson
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote


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James Ellroy Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Daniel Staebler  

SCHOLARS:
David Loftus  


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