76 books like Underworld USA Trilogy

James Ellroy’s 1987 novel exploring the infamous unsolved and ghoulish murder of Elizabeth Short, the so-called “Black Dahlia,” gripped me with its chilling portrayal of two very different cops who become obsessed with solving the 1947 murder.

Although this is a relatively early work of Ellroy’s and extremely visceral owing to the nature of the historical crime, it’s arguably the author’s first mature novel, proved to be his breakout book, and pre-dates the rather alliterative, staccato prose style he would adopt not long after.

Post-war Los Angeles is seedily, disturbingly rendered in surreal and gothic relief, while Ellroy also masterfully portrays many of the haunted LAPD detectives who actually worked the case.

Few writers inhabit history, distill it, and convey the feeling of an era with the verve or immediacy of E.L. Doctorow.

In Billy Bathgate, he trains his lens on the 1930s and introduces us to Billy Behan, a fatherless Irish-Jewish kid from the Bronx, who has a chance encounter with New York gangster Dutch Schultz and decides “whatever my life was going to be in this world it would have something to do with Mr. Schultz.”

Add a love triangle, a colorful cast of mobsters, murder, blackmail, a special prosecutor, and you have the propulsive plot and rich characters that power this unforgettable novel.   

In the dark world of hardboiled literature, anything can happen at any time for any reason—or no reason at all. In my view, that makes things easy for this debut novel about an unemployed LA factory worker named Easy Rawlins, and that makes things challenging for the story—for the character—as well. 

A man with money and power offers Easy a job looking for a missing blond-haired, white-skinned beauty. Rawlins faces only two problems: He has no experience as a private detective, and he needs to do the detecting with black skin in a segregated, remarkably unequal 1948 America. 

But I think Mosley has found the perfect genre for his character, one whose tough and humane and even psychologically insightful qualities have enabled him to adjust to, learn from, and survive in a place where laws can break out or disappear, depending on the color of his skin. Rawlins finds it… show more.

Elroy wrote many other books before he took on this epic noir crime novel (one in a quartet). He made his bones in writing, and it's evident in his skill level, story, and prose. Elroy excels in this novel (and the other three) in voice. And voice is the Big Kahuna in writing, it’s the everything in writing and Elroy has it in spades.

Another great addition to the above is the length (because you don’t want this book to ever end) and that it’s a historical novel that absolutely captures the time period and adds the historical nuance to all the characters.

Memoirs don’t often feature mysteries, but Elroy, known for tough, cynical crime novels such as L.A. Confidential, centers his around his obsession with the unsolved murder of his mother in 1958 when Elroy was ten. With allusions to the famous Blue Dahlia case, Elroy writes with brutal frankness about his own pathologies and his weirdly loving relationship with his neglectful, alcoholic father. If nothing else, this absorbing book—hard to read and equally hard to put down—solves the mystery of why Elroy and his novels come off as so creepy.

What I loved most about Night Boat to Tangier is the same thing I love about all of Kevin Barry’s books – the delivery.

Whether it’s City of Bohane, The Heart in Winter, Beatlebone, or this book, the best part of a Kevin Barry novel is always the writing and the voice. The story is almost secondary.

You might expect the story of a seasoned drug importer reuniting with his estranged daughter to be a spectacle, but what I loved about this book was the way many of the tendrils of the story were allowed to uncurl slowly, and some not at all.

I like to imagine Kevin Barry was at the ferry station one day and looked at a couple of aging, shaved-head, tattooed Irish thugs leaning against a wall waiting, and asked, “What’s their story?” Then he wrote it. 

Retired hitman Frankie Machianno thinks he’s left the past behind and can focus on the things that matter—wife, mistress, daughter, surfing, perfect kitchen, roasting coffee, cooking.

But someone is coming for him and wants him dead. The problem is: Frankie doesn’t know who. As he tries to figure it out, we learn about Frank, his family, his lover, and his past, from San Diego beach bum to mafia “button man.”

He’s my favorite kind of gangster—the good guy bad guy—and I couldn’t help but like Frank and fear for his life, as the novel hurtles toward its bittersweet conclusion.



Ellroy at his most avant-garde. The plot is familiar territory for Ellroy fans; murder and political corruption in 1950s LA. But the experimental prose style, including the most pared-down clipped sentences, started to alienate some of his readers. Personally, I regard the book as Ellroy’s masterpiece and the experimentation is justified as it helps to deliver a lightning-fast pace.

This is a personal favourite as it’s the Ellroy novel that carries the biggest emotional punch. Although it didn’t match the sales of its predecessor The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere is a more accomplished novel. The setting is LA, 1950. A murder plot is interweaved with the politics of the Red Scare, and a Hollywood milieu at the height of the film noir age. This is the novel that proved Ellroy was a literary writer, and not just a genre one.

This was James Ellroy’s debut novel and has been all but forgotten compared to the masterpieces he later produced. But there is so much in this book that reveals why Ellroy was destined for greatness: strong plotting, vivid characters, electrifying prose. The plot involves a car repo man who takes on a private eye case for an oddball golf caddy. The plot owes a lot to Raymond Chandler, but it still feels original in Ellroy’s hands. Allow yourself to be swept away by it.