Clues 44.2: Reappraising James Ellroy.

Clues 44.2 (2026) has been published, which is a theme issue on "Reappraising James Ellroy," guest edited by Nathan Ashman (U of East Anglia, UK) and Steven Powell (U of Liverpool, UK). See below for abstracts. I will update this post when the ebook versions are available. Contact McFarland for subscriptions. 

Introduction: Reappraising James Ellroy / Steven Powell and Nathan Ashman
The coeditors discuss the contents of this theme issue on the work of James Ellroy, including articles on The Black Dahlia, Perfidia, the Underworld USA Trilogy (American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, Blood’s a Rover)

“It’s Good for Business”: The Conspiratorial Logic of James Ellroy’s Underworld USA Trilogy / Nathan Ashman 
This article examines the meaning and function of conspiracy in James Ellroy’s Underworld USA Trilogy. Engaging with twentieth century and contemporary debates on “conspiracy culture,” it contends that Ellroy presents a vision of history shaped less by coherent political ideologies than by competing economic interests.

Histories of Bad Men: William Guy Banister and Clandestine Archives in American Tabloid and Libra / Bradley J. Wiles (Northern Illinois U)
This article compares James Ellroy’s American Tabloid and Don DeLillo’s Libra through their portrayals of William Guy Banister, a key figure in Kennedy assassination lore. Banister’s appeal is rooted in his representation as a conduit to secret history, which could potentially provide answers to the many mysteries surrounding the Kennedy assassination. 

The Big Elsewhere: American Tabloid, States of Exception, and Imperial Noir
Rodney Taveira (U of Sydney, Australia)
American Tabloid and its successors map a dispersed network of limited sovereignty marked by a convergence of state and criminal violence. This essay argues that Ellroy’s Underworld USA trilogy and L.A. Quintet develop a form of “imperial noir” where the procedural methods of domestic crime fiction expose the extractive and racialized logics of American empire.  

Audial DTs, Adaptation, and Vortices of Meaning: James Ellroy’s American Tabloid
Jim Mancall (Berkshire Community College, MA)
In 2023, Audible produced a full-cast “Audible Original” version of American Tabloid, with Ellroy as narrator. This adaptation, and Ellroy’s involvement in it indicate a growing consciousness of his legacy and the adaptations that represent his work. This essay argues that what Borbála Bökös has dubbed the “intermedial uncanny” may be the most crucially Ellrovian element of this recent adaptation.

“Nothing Before This Moment Exists”: Wartime Mobilization and Uneven Participation in Perfidia / Mauricio Ortiz Zaragoza (U of Nevada–Las Vegas)
This article examines the representation of WWII wartime mobilization in James Ellroy’s Perfidia, a sprawling crime saga set in Los Angeles. Focusing on characters Kay Lake and Hideo Ashida, it examines the ways in which race, gender, and institutional power shape individuals’ capacities to intervene in history and public memory.

In Cold Homage: The Influence of Truman Capote and the Nonfiction Novel on James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia / Steven Powell
The nonfiction novel is an unacknowledged influence on James Ellroy’s writing. Tracing the impact of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Meyer Levin’s Compulsion, and Joseph Wambaugh’s The Onion Field, it argues that The Black Dahlia not only resembles a nonfiction novel but also may be a major work in the field.

The Last Word: Ellroy and Macdonald / Tom Nolan
The author discusses the influence of writer Ross Macdonald (aka Kenneth Millar) on James Ellroy.

ESSAY
Framing and Shaming Harriet Vane: Toxic Justice in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Strong Poison
Charlotte Beyer (U of Gloucestershire, UK)
This article examines Dorothy L. Sayers’ Strong Poison, focusing specifically on the novel’s critique of justice for women under patriarchy. Representations of justice and its subversion are analyzed through the gender coding of crime, gaslighting, sexual shaming, and gender bias, producing a fresh feminist reading of this canonical novel. 

REVIEWS
Chris McGee. Detective Fiction for Young Readers: Full of Secrets 
Elizabeth Blakesley (Washington State U)

Gill Plain. Agatha Christie: A Very Short Introduction
Caroline Reitz (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY / CUNY Graduate Center)

Stuart Richards. Agatha Christie and Gothic Horror: Adaptations and Televisuality 
Christine Photinos (National Univ)

Eric Sandberg. Crime Fiction and the Holocaust 
Nathaniel Wachtel (U of Texas at Austin)

Stephanie Bernhard. Gender Identity and Gender Relations Redefined: Muller’s and Grafton’s Female Countertradition to Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction / Diane M. Calhoun-French

Kamil Naicker. Return to the Scene of the Crime / Marla Harris

Index to Volume 44 / Compiled by Annika R.P. Deutsch (U of Utah)