James Ellroy, today's greatest crime writer, lived through experiences as difficult, if not more so, than the characters in his novels. As a boy, his mother was murdered. As a teenager, he was a beggar, a drug addict, and was arrested several times, only to be rescued from a normal life through literature. These harsh and powerful experiences permeate his entire work. The settings, characters, and plots of books like "L.A. Confidential," "American Tabloid," and other bestsellers are inspired by his youth in a mythical Los Angeles, rife with gangsters, corruption, drugs, violence, and women of abundant form and questionable character. In the biographical account of "My Dark Places," Ellroy revisits his past in an attempt to exorcise the ghosts that haunted him. The idea was to use the money and prestige he gained from literature to reinvestigate his mother's murder, searching for answers—not only about the identity of the man who killed her, but also about his own origins. The journey into the past is painful, but, hardened by the traumas of his childhood and youth, Ellroy endures it well. *My Dark Places* is divided into four parts. In the first, *The Redhead*, Ellroy relives and recounts the investigation into his mother's murder. In the second part, *The Boy in the Photograph*, he recalls his life, in an account that begins in his childhood and continues until his discovery of literature. Here, he shamelessly reveals that he was a drug addict, a beggar, and that he broke into houses to steal and sniff panties. He explains what it took to get out of that pit. Then, in *Stone*, Ellroy describes the detective he hired to reopen the Jean Ellroy murder case. Finally, *Geneva Hilliker* recounts the new investigation into the case, its developments, and the discovery of his mother's personality, for whom Ellroy even confesses a strong sexual desire. In this book, Ellroy fearlessly exposes himself, allowing readers to discover the darkest and most secret corners of his universe, a constant presence in his fictional work. Written with remarkable rawness, My Dark Places is as brilliant as his fiction. It guides those interested in the motivations behind his literary work. A moving and extremely harsh account of a life sometimes more sordid than that of the most vile characters in the detective fiction of this modern master of the genre.
