sei pezzi da mille riprende esattamente da dove american tabloid finisce: da quella stessa camera d'albergo, con pete che guarda, con littell che fa quello che fa.
arrivano nuovi personaggi: wayne jr. - incaricato di ammazzare un negro a dallas in cambio di seimila dollari. il negro scappa e non si trova.
che altro succede a dallas nel frattempo? ah sì, qualcuno si becca tre pallottole e una di queste gli fa esplodere il cervello.
arriva wayne senior, che ha incaricato il figlio di ammazzare il negro. è ricco, razzista e supporta il KKK. odia martin luther king e di riflesso anche bobby kennedy.
c'è dwight holly, agente FBI che trama contro gli afroamericani insieme a edgar hoover, ovviamente.
nel frattempo howard hughes vuole comprarsi las vegas e incarica il nostro amico littell di occuparsi di tutto. littell lo frega, la mafia non vuole cedere i casinò perché hughes vuole riempirli di mormoni.
pete va in vietnam, che non è ancora la guerra assurda che diventerà. vietnam è la nuova cuba. vietnam è eroina. la cia e la mafia vogliono la droga. vogliono spacciarla a las vegas, l'unica città in cui non si può spacciare. vogliono anestetizzare i negri. vogliono creare problemi: negri contro negri. vogliono screditare martin lucifer king. che tra l'altro scopa le bianche.
nel mezzo si trovano: tradimenti amorosi; il cancro; froci che si fingono eterosessuali; eterosessuali che si fingono froci; omicidi; cospirazioni; furti; prostitute; mazze dal golf e bastoni; voyeur; camere d'albergo; microfoni nei telefoni; fucili rubati; il razzismo contro i negri; il razzismo contro i bianchi; nixon; memphis e los angeles; soldi; tantissimi soldi.
redenzione.
senso di colpa.
in american tabloid i protagonisti volevano fare la storia. non avevano scrupoli, dovevano raggiungere l'obiettivo di fare soldi. erano avidi. storia & soldi.
in sei pezzi da mille è diverso. hanno fatto la frittata. la fine di american tabloid è l'inizio di sei pezzi da mille. la fine di american tabloid è l'inizio della fine. i nostri amici si rendono conto di quello che hanno fatto. hanno sensi di colpa, vogliono fare ammenda per i propri peccati, per i propri tradimenti.
ma è troppo tardi.
che altro c'è da dire? lo stile è meno fluido, più staccato. american tabloid è scritto meglio. il sangue è randagio ho saputo che è scritto un po' meglio. sei pezzi da mille a volte è quasi illeggibile. è più brutto? mah. neanche troppo. è la natura dei secondi.
le ultime 150 pagine sono pura dinamite, però. anche le prime 100. nel mezzo: vietnam, droga e senso di colpa.

Reads like a volcanic eruption of pent-up, noxious fumes forced underground by your high school history class' neat and tidy portrayal of the sixties. Rolls around in way too much bigotry, of every flavor, to be wholly enjoyable. But I found it impossible to look away or stop reading. Would give it more stars if it hadn't left me feeling the need to shower.

everyone here is so tough and hip that I feel like I can hardly measure up. it's a violent, confusing (though probably because I hadn't read the other books in the series), drug-riddled car wreck of a book, and it's hard to look away

Ultra-stylized, over-complicated, and ultimately uninteresting. Ellroy's voice, once one of the most unique in modern fiction, comes off as gibberish here. One can only hope that if he ever finishes "American Underworld" (which at this point is looking like the "Chinese Democracy" of crime fiction), it will be a return to form for Ellroy and not a further descent into self-parody.

For me American Tabloid is a stone cold masterpiece, and I much preferred that to this; despite the fact that the staccato prose I've gotten use to is ever present (even more so here I'd say), certain characters returning, and the story just carrying on from where American Tabloid ended. Things to like certainly is the mix of actual events and real like figures along side the fictional ones, and when it's good it's really good, and despite thinking it tool long and not as engrossing as American Tabloid it's still a hell of a lot better that the best of most other historical crime fiction writers, so four stars for the things I really liked about it.

Ever since I discovered James Ellroy, his particular and signature writing style, and his world, I've never stopped telling myself that reading his work is like swimming naked in a glass of whisky on the rocks — it's good, it's pleasant, it's powerful. You get high, you want to stay there for hours and hours, you want to spend the rest of your life there. You are overwhelmed with a sense of freedom.

And that's how I felt when I read THE COLD SIX THOUSAND — the second part of the UNDERWORLD USA trilogy, preceded by the huge, legendary and mythical AMERICAN TABLOID.

950 — or rather, 951 pages of pure happiness, of an endless journey in post-Kennedy America, in an America prey to despair and panic, which has seen its idol, its young and handsome President, tragically assassinated. 951 pages of an Ellroy who perfectly masters his pen, History with a capital H, and who takes a malicious pleasure in mixing it with fiction, so much so that the readers find themselves lost in wondering if this or that event really took place and unfolded as described.

In this intense second instalment, we meet again our two favourite sidekicks from the previous volume — Ward J. Littel and Pierre "Pete" Bondurant. A newcomer enters the scene : Wayne Tedrow Jr.

As for the first of the trio, Ward Littel seeks repentance after having hurt and betrayed (in a way) RFK and will venture for 5 years to repair his mistake. Through his encounter with Arden-Jane Bruvick Breen Fentress (aka the real femme fatale of the book) — forgive my clumsiness, this woman has a number of identities that I no longer know in what order they are arranged — he seems to find a second life, a new lease of life, and then everything falls apart. He finds himself trapped, bruised, wandering in a fog all day long in search of answers and explanations. Ward is particularly symbolic, moving, we immediately feel affection for this big guy and we pray inside that he finds peace and can breathe again... Of the three characters, he is the one who is the best developed, who has the best background and the best story. And the end of his rocky adventure, full of twists and turns, brings tears to our eyes, so predictable is it, but we still had a little hope that he would make it.

Pete Bondurant, my favourite — for the record, I so enjoy saying his name out loud to make it sound like a dense, complex entity — Pete Bondurant with gallons of blood on his hands, Pete Bondurant in love, Pete Bondurant snuggled up with his redheaded wife Barb. I cannot properly explain his journey as it is so full of twists and turns. What can be said is that Pete arrives, and it has to be said, at the end of the road. He's tired and he's constantly rehashing the past. He puts himself at the service of the Mafia — represented by the famous Sam Gianncanna, Carlos Marcello, John Rosselli, Moe Dalitz —, carries out missions and "dirty jobs" for them, and watches them foment, finance and set up the most famous coups in history (the assassinations of JFK and RFK, the Vietnam war, Las Vegas) without ever getting its hands dirty.

All these events will get the better of him. And his wife, Barbara Jahelka Lindscott Bondurant (B.B, as I like to call her, like Brigitte Bardot, B.B), will make him understand it. She poses as a voice of reason, as an Ellroyan goddess. Like Bassinger in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, she is in charge of her sulphurous and scarred hero's redemption — and this, Pete will be forced to accept.

And the last one. Wayne Tedrow Junior. Son of the legendary Wayne Tedrow Senior. He is a 29 year old young man (at the beginning of the book) who tries to get out of his father's overwhelming shadow to make a name for himself. We are directly thrown into their complex relationship, which teeters between love, admiration and hatred, and we can easily guess (in a way) — but are not really sure — how it will end. His journey is brilliantly conducted and plotted, and we always look forward to what happens next.

All the other great characters are also there, each one equally complex and interesting. Dwight Holly (a newcomer), J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

The text is raw, simple and cold. We shriek with disgust at the racism and hatred towards the Communists present in the book, too, according to James Ellroy, « reflect the violence of that time ». And I can only say one thing : it is brilliantly done. The author recapitulates the events of TABLOID, recalls who did what, who killed whom, how this or that event took place, making the reading of the first volume almost — and I mean almost — dispensable. But I still recommend it, as the book is excellent and — yes, I'm saying it — perfect (on absolutely every point).

THE COLD SIX THOUSAND is defined by the word "betrayal", which defines the relationship between the different characters. Barbara Jahelka Lindscott Bondurant betrays Pete, her husband, by taking drugs ; Pete Bondurant betrays his wife by pursuing his criminal affairs and by his failing heart ; Ward Littel betrays J. Edgar Hoover by funding MLK, AACES, and supporting RFK ; J. Edgar Hoover betrays Ward Littel by having him watched, tapped and trapped ; Wayne Jr. betrays his father by sleeping with Janice ; Wayne Senior betrays — or rather, uses — his son by manipulating him into committing dirty covert operations ; John Stanton and the Mafia betray Pete Bondurant by embezzling money from their criminal activities in Vietnam and Cuba ; Arden-Jane Bruvick Breen Fentress betrays Ward Littel by spying on him. I could go on for hours as this pattern is so perfectly executed.

What I really didn't like about this second volume was the absence of some very important characters. Bobby Kennedy, LBJ and Howard Hughes — they're there, I would have liked more, but they're there anyway. They're there without being there, and that's a shame. I would have loved Bobby to have the same level of presence in this book as he had in AMERICAN TABLOID, I would have loved LBJ to be as present as JFK was in AMERICAN TABLOID, and I would have liked so much to follow Howard Hughes as he took over Las Vegas and turned into a blood-drinking Earl Dracula — I so wish he could have been as present in this book as he was in AMERICAN TABLOID. I was particularly looking forward to this second book for that, and I was very disappointed.

But besides that, I have to say one thing : Ellroy is brilliant ! We travelled between Vietnam and the hell of its war, Las Vegas, Dallas, Cuba, Washington, Los Angeles, and many other places throughout the book — I finished the book in a daze. What the hell, it was good and I'm still in it !

I have a feeling I'll be rereading AMERICAN TABLOID, because it's my favourite of the trilogy and I'm very keen to see JFK again. So I give THE COLD SIX THOUSAND a 4 out of 5 — it's very good, but not as good as its predecessor.

Interessantissimo ma la scrittura didascalica di Ellroy qui è esagerata e rovina un po' il piacere della lettura (ovviamente è un'opinione personale)

Unfortunately this book just isn't as good as American Tabloid. And I think the problem with it is that the main plot is just not that compelling. In AT we knew that everything was leading up to the assassination of JFK. And even a fraction of the way in, we knew that the Bay of Pigs was coming down the pike.

In the Cold Six Thousand, we know that MLK and RFK are both going to die before the end of this 650 page story. It's more of the same... multiple shooters, set up a patsy. The Routine. The conspiratorial intricacies are far less interesting, because they aren't really new. And the rest of the plot--dense as it is--draws little interest. Many of the characters are new. Their claims to sympathy are not well established, and the relationships between them don't feel important. Howard Hughes is still a player, but with much less presence than in the preceding novel. J. Edgar Hoover has become less complex in the Cold Six Thousand, somewhat cartoonish even. Pete Bondurant and Ward Littel are also void of much solidity. One wishes occasionally that Littel would start drinking again to liven things up. Or that Pete Bondurant might have a crisis of confidence or an anxiety attack at least.

Yes there is much violence to spice things up. Silencers smoke, faces are shot off, heads are crushed in vices. But between these episodes are long segments of explication that turn the book into a literary slog somewhere between the third-hundredth and fifth-hundredth page. Even Ellroy's rat-a-tat prose can't cut through the thicket. Where American Tabloid read like a thousand consecutive punches to the head, Cold Six Thousand is like Chinese water torture, each short chapter starting in agony and ending in relief.

I get the feeling that Ellroy felt as bored writing this book as I felt reading it. But just as Cold Six Thousand is required reading in the Underworld USA trilogy, this is a book that Ellroy was required to write. Is it possible that he skipped over most of the editing process because he just didn't want to deal with it anymore?

I really struggled through this one. I really enjoyed American Tabloid, but this was a but too much for me. The last 100 pages or so made it worth reading to the end, but at one point I thought I was going to just quit reading it. I read this right after reading American Tabloid, and I do want to finish the trilogy, but I am taking a break from Ellroy for awhile.

I think all the hate was really what got to me in this one. It was also more violent, so the hate and the violence made it a lot harder to read.

Hoping I enjoy Bloods a Rover a bit more.

The hardest boiled of crime and detective writers turns to politics to cover the right wing underbelly of the sixties. Starting with White Jazz, Ellroy changed his writing to a more modernist, fast paced and chopped up narrative style, and it gets even more extreme as he progresses through the Underworld USA series.

The series begins with American Tabloid, which covers the late 50s up through the Bay of Pigs to the JFK assassination, twisting in every conspiracy theory into a believable narrative. The Cold Six Thousand is even better, taking off from the day JFK is shot and goes to RFK's assassination. The plot weaves a tapesty of collusion between the mob, the FBI & the CIA, with Howard Hughes and Joe Kennedy being arch enemies behind the scenes, and J. Edgar Hoover being an evil genius between them. Likeable mob hit men, CIA heroin running from Viet Nam, bribes to Nixon and the setting up of the MLK & RFK assassination are all part of the compelling story.

For any one who loves conspiracy theories about the political assassinations of the sixties, this book is essential. Often violent and breath taking, it moves along at the pace of a automatic in a gun fight, yet has more depth than your typical crime story. It's so compelling and believable, it made me go back and check some of the historical background behind the fiction.

-Muy Ellroy, pero mucho. Así que ya saben lo malo y lo muy bueno que les espera.-

Género. Novela.

Lo que nos cuenta. En el libro Seis de los grandes (publicación original: The Cold Six Thousand, 2001), Wayne Tedrow Junior aterriza en Dallas minutos después del asesinato del presidente J. F. Kennedy. Wayne fue soldado y ahora es policía en Las Vegas, y llega a la ciudad con el encargo de matar, por seis mil dólares, a un proxeneta negro que ha molestado al clan de los casinos. En Dallas contará con la ayuda de Maynard D. Moore, policía de la ciudad, relacionado con alguna de las víctimas colaterales del magnicidio. Casi a la vez aterriza en la misma ciudad Ward Littel, un antiguo agente del FBI, pero que mantiene lazos indirectos y férreos con la agencia, que ahora trabaja para la mafia aunque sigue los dictados de J. Edgar Hoover y, en esta ocasión, debe asegurar que toda la investigación sobre la muerte de Kennedy apunte a Lee Harvey Oswald. En la ciudad también está Pete Bondurant, operativo que igual trabaja para la CIA que para la mafia. Segundo libro de la trilogía America oculta pero que se puede leer de forma independiente.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

You have to experience these books. No one can tell you what it is like to read them.

Is it literature? I think not, the repetitive style, the lack of descriptions, the frankly non existant characterisation, the way key events hang at the end of sentances and moves on. We know next to nothing about what motivates these characters and why they are doing the things they do.

Is it Fiction? Possibly, but it is an alternative take on 60s america, following on from American Tabloid, and the death of the 1st kennedy. There are the usual conspiracies and people doing things that have been rumoured over the years.

The book concentrates on the aftermath of JFK killing. Jack Ruby, Bobby Kennendy, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffer, Hoover, Nixon, LBJ, Vietnam, race relations are all given the same treatments as in the first book.

All that has happened in this book is that we have moved from 58-63 to 63-68.

The book is near impossible to read as a standard work of fiction. However, there is something that drags you forward but I would say that you need to have real dedication to finish it. I cannot see how anyone can enjoy it.

Complex, annoying, interesting, unique.

Bloods a rover next and then that it is it for Ellroy.