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:
(1987) The Black Dahlia
(1988) The Big Nowhere
(1990) L.A. Confidential
(1992) White JazzElmore Leonard wrote that "reading The Black Dahlia aloud would shatter wine glasses". Several characters from the L.A. Quartet, most notably Dudley Smith, were introduced in Ellroy's 1982 novel Clandestine, which is set between 1951 and 1955 and makes reference to the Black Dahlia killing and Dudley Smith's investigation into it. The four novels, along with The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy novels, were recently reprinted in 2019 into omnibus editions part of the Everyman's Library series.
Ellroy has also
ted writing The Second L.A. Quartet, which takes place before the events of The L.A. Quartet. It includes the real life and fictional characters from The L.A. Quartet and The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy. Two novels of The Second L.A. Quartet have been released: Perfidia in 2014, and This S
m in 2019. The significance of this series and uniting the three series is noted in the dramatis personae of This S
m, stating:
"This S
m is the second volume of the Second L.A. Quartet. The first volume, Perfidia, covers December 6 through December 29, 1941. The L.A. Quartet--The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz--covers the years 1946 to 1958 in Los Angeles. The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy--American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's A Rover--covers 1958 to 1972, on a national scale. The Second L.A. Quartet places real-life and fictional characters from the first two bodies of work in Los Angeles, during World War II, as significantly younger people. These three series span thirty-one years and will stand as one novelistic his
y."
