Blood's A Rover - Reviews

Reviews

Reviewers were mostly positive about the book.

In The Dallas Morning News, Preston Jones wrote, "History is refracted and reflected through Ellroy's peerless paragraphs, lending a fresh urgency and a sense of rediscovery to events thoroughly analyzed. Blood's a Rover commands your attention from the first page and, thanks to its heft, makes reading in piecemeal fashion daunting. Ellroy's latest is American fiction at its finest, a dexterous, astounding achievement."

Mark Rahner, in his review for The Seattle Times, stated succinctly, "Verdict: so absorbing and satisfying that it's exhausting." He then went on to say:

You could possibly read it as a stand-alone. But why would you want to? And even having inhaled the previous two like a paint-huffing junkie, I sometimes felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails to keep everyone and everything straight in the big cast of characters and sprawling story that spans Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Chicago, Florida, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

However, Carlo Wolff, in his review for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, took issue with Ellroy's character development. He stated, "... as in the earlier book, Ellroy hasn't lavished enough attention on character, a deficit his stylistic razzle-dazzle can't paper over." He continued, "Mastery of the cheap thrill doesn't carry no matter how amusing."