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The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy consists of the three crime fiction novels written by James Ellroy: Blood on the Moon (1984), Because the Night (1984) and Suicide Hill (1985). [1]
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2017) |
The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy consists of the three crime fiction novels written by James Ellroy: Blood on the Moon (1984), Because the Night (1984) and Suicide Hill (1985). [1]
The main character in all three novels is Lloyd Hopkins, an LAPD detective. Born in 1942, Hopkins hails from a Silverlake Irish Protestant family. He is very tall and muscular, has an outstanding I.Q., is a sexual addict and sometimes feels entitled to break the law in order to right wrongs. Hopkins can't stand music or other loud noises, and frequently goes for days without sleep while working a hot case.
Motivation to create the character stemmed from Ellroy wanting to create a cop character who harbored both racist and reactionary impulses, but was not defined solely by them. Thomas Harris's Red Dragon was also a huge influence on the character. [2]
Other characters involved in the novels include:
In Blood on the Moon and Because the Night, Lloyd Hopkins clears up murders committed by exceptionally intelligent and organised criminals. The villains in Suicide Hill are much more trivial. The novels revolve around an underlying identification between Hopkins and the murderers.
Conversely, because of his own infringements, Hopkins can never solve his cases and have the villains punished lawfully. Completing his investigations also involves confronting and defeating Fred Gaffaney, who wants Hopkins out of the LAPD for his wayward ways. Thematically, all this means that Hopkins can never obtain professional reward or personal recognition for his accomplishments. From a narrative point of view, it means that the line between main plot and subplot is blurred.
Another aim for Hopkins in the novels is to save his marriage. Of his three daughters, he has a special relationship with Penny.
As early as 1993, Ellroy has indicated that he did not care for Hopkins or the three novels he appeared in. He even went as far as to say that Blood on the Moon is the only previous work to him cringe looking back on it [3] .
Ellroy's take-it-or-leave-it attitude about the character can be seen in the opening to L.A. Noir, an omnibus edition of the three Hopkins novels. Ellroy tells the reader that "I don't care what you think of Hopkins" [2]
Actor Tom Hanks stated that he would be interested in playing Lloyd Hopkins if a film or stage adaptation was to be produced. [4]
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987) and L.A. Confidential (1990).
The Black Dahlia (1987) is a crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Its subject is the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles, California, which received wide attention because her corpse was horrifically mutilated and discarded in an empty residential lot. The investigation ultimately led to a broad police corruption scandal. While rooted in the facts of the Short murder and featuring many real-life people, places and events, Ellroy's novel blends facts and fiction, most notably in providing a solution to the crime when in reality it has never been solved. James Ellroy dedicated The Black Dahlia, "To Geneva Hilliker Ellroy 1915-1958 Mother: Twenty-nine Years Later, This Valediction in Blood." The epigraph for The Black Dahlia is "Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, My first lost keeper, to love and look at later. -Anne Sexton."
Michael Joseph Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bestselling author of 38 novels and one work of non-fiction, with over 74 million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into 40 languages. His first novel, The Black Echo, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly's 1997 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer starred Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.
The Big Nowhere is a 1988 crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy, the second of the L.A. Quartet, a series of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles.
White Jazz is a 1992 crime fiction novel by James Ellroy. It is the fourth in his L.A. Quartet, preceded by The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, and L.A. Confidential. James Ellroy dedicated White Jazz "TO Helen Knode." The epigraph for White Jazz is "'In the end I possess my birthplace and I am possessed by its language.' -Ross MacDonald."
Blood on the Moon (1984) is a crime novel by James Ellroy. It is the first installment of the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy. It was followed by Because the Night (1984) and Suicide Hill (1985). Although the novels are written in multiple perspectives and narrated omnisciently, the main character in all three is Lloyd Hopkins. Ellroy has stated that Blood on the Moon is his only novel that he is embarrassed by.
Because the Night is a crime fiction novel written by James Ellroy.
Cop is a 1988 American neo-noir crime suspense film written and directed by James B. Harris, starring James Woods, Lesley Ann Warren and Charles Durning. It is based on the 1984 book Blood on the Moon, by James Ellroy. Harris and Woods co-produced the film, a first for their careers.
The L.A. Quartet is a sequence of four crime fiction novels by James Ellroy set in the late 1940s through the late 1950s in Los Angeles. They are:
Killer on the Road is a crime novel by American author James Ellroy. First published in 1986, it is a non-series book between the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy and the L.A. Quartet. It was first released by Avon as a mass-market paperback original under the title Silent Terror, and has since been republished in the U.S. under Ellroy's original title Killer on the Road, first as a mass-market paperback in 1990 and later as a trade paperback in 1999.
L.A. Confidential (1990) is a neo-noir novel by James Ellroy and the third of his L.A. Quartet series. It is dedicated to Mary Doherty Ellroy. The epigraph is "A glory that costs everything and means nothing"—Steve Erickson.
Blood's a Rover is a 2009 crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. It follows American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand as the final volume of Ellroy's Underworld USA Trilogy. A 10,000-word excerpt was published in the December 2008 issue of Playboy. The book was released on September 22, 2009. James Ellroy dedicated Blood's a Rover "To J.M. Comrade: For Everything You Gave Me."
Suicide Hill is a crime fiction novel written by James Ellroy. Released in 1986, it is the third and final installment of the Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy.
Clandestine is a 1982 crime novel by American author James Ellroy. Set in 1951, the protagonist is ambitious LAPD Officer Fred Underhill. Ellroy dedicated Clandestine, "to Penny Nagler".
Perfidia is a historical romance and crime fiction novel by American author James Ellroy. Published in 2014, it is the first novel in the second L.A. Quartet, referring to his four prior novels from the first L.A. Quartet. Perfidia was released September 9, 2014. A Waterstones exclusive limited edition of Perfidia was released September 11, 2014, and includes an essay by Ellroy himself titled "Ellroy's History – Then and Now." The title, Perfidia, is Italian for the word perfidy, and is also the name of the big band song, Perfidia.
Craig McDonald is an American novelist, journalist, communications specialist, and the author of the Hector Lassiter series, the Zana O'Savin Series, the novel El Gavilan, and two collections of interviews with fiction writers, Art in the Blood (2006) and Rogue Males (2009). He also edited the anthology, Borderland Noir (2015).
LAPD '53 is a historical non-fiction book by James Ellroy and Glynn Martin, about the laws, crimes, and the LAPD, during the year of 1953. Ellroy is a writer known mainly for crime fiction set in Los Angeles. Martin was the executive director for the Los Angeles Police Museum.
True Confessions is a noir novel by John Gregory Dunne and published in 1977. The novel was inspired by an actual event, the 1947 Black Dahlia murder.
The Black Dahlia: A Crime Graphic Novel is a graphic novel adaptation of James Ellroy's novel The Black Dahlia, by Alexis Nolent and David Fincher, and illustrated by Miles Hyman. Originally published in 2013 in French as Le Dahlia Noir, it was published in English in June 2016, by Archaia Entertainment, a division of Boom! Studios.
This Storm: A Novel is a 2019 historical fiction and crime fiction by American author James Ellroy. It is the second novel in Ellroy's "Second L.A. Quartet", in reference to the first "L.A. Quartet", and following the novel Perfidia. Ellroy dedicated the novel "To HELEN KNODE." The epigraph is "Blood alone moves the wheels of history. -Benito "Il Duce" Mussolini". It was released May 30, 2019, in the United Kingdom, and June 4, 2019 in the United States.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)Works by James Ellroy | |
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| Stand-alone |
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| Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy |
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| L.A. Quartet |
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| Underworld USA Trilogy |
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| The Second L.A. Quartet |
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| Short story collections |
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| Non-fiction |
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| Original screenplays |
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| Film adaptations |
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