James Ellroy's Perfidia is a re-creation of Los Angeles during the weeks after the Pearl Harbor attack, when racial tensions were at a high boil and chaos raged in the streets. The novel begins with the grotesque crime scene of a dead Japanese family on December 6, 1941, the result of either actual or staged seppuku. A number of cops converge on the scene: Captain William H. Parker, a sin-obsessed Catholic and rank careerist; Sergeant Dudley Smith, a homicidal Irish tough guy (known to fans of L.A. Confidential); and brilliant police chemist Hideo Ashida, who is held in low regard by the others because of his race and the hidden nature of his sexuality. They all try to solve the crime while simultaneously fighting each other as Los Angeles explodes around them in an incendiary mix of racial loathing, war fever and the lurid vice that Ellroy excels at portraying.
The World War II backdrop gives Ellroy a vast canvas on which to showcase his gifts. He demonstrates in raw prose and precise scene-setting the moral wrongs and mistreatment imposed on the Japanese of that era, while also demonstrating compassionate understanding of both the personal demons that drive men and women and the vast chasm between our private selves and what we must present in our daily lives. With Perfidia, Ellroy proves he's a fine novelist at the top of his game, demonstrating his own capacity for growth and ambition even at this advanced stage of his career. --Donald Powell, freelance writer