AMERICAN TABLOID
by James Ellroy (1995)
Situated between the 22nd of November 1957 and the 22nd of November 1963, the lives of three protagonists intersect through the events that became America’s last great cultural turn. The Mob has been using a string of casinos in Cuba to both generate capital and to launder cash profits. The Cuban people, led famously by Castro and Guevara, oust the dictator Batista, who has facilitated the Mob takeover of Cuba. The revolutionaries quite sensibly assume control over the casinos and redirect the financial resources to the peoples cause. The Mob are thoroughly displeased with this development, and going forward, fund a group of Cuban exiles (anti-revolutionaries with grudges) who are being trained and organised by the CIA to launch an attack on Cuba. JMWAVE. The Bay of Pigs invasion is a spectacular failure, and the anti-revolutionaries are routed, and many are destroyed. President Kennedy could have sent in air support to bomb those Cuban commies but selected not to. An act perceived as betrayal. Now the Mob and the CIA have President Kennedy in their (rifle) sights. A bold and unflinching assessment of the five-year period leading up to the fateful day of the JFK assassination. Fiction. 585 pages.
DETAILS:
Title: American tabloid
Year: 1995
Author: James Ellroy
Pages: 585
Series: Underworld USA 1 / 3
Book review by Keith Salter
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