by James Ellroy

The real-life story by the author of L.A. Confidential

• A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
  
• A Time Magazine Best Book of the Year
  
• A Los Angeles Times #1 Bestseller

"Astonishing . . . original, daring, brilliant." --Philadelphia Inquirer

In 1958, the body of Jean Ellroy was found dumped off the road in a run-down L.A. suburb. The killer was never found and the case was closed. It was a sordid back-page homicide that nobody remembered. Except her son. James Ellroy was ten years old when his mother died. His bereavement was complex and ambiguous. He grew up obsessed with murdered women and crime. He ran from his mother's ghost. He became a writer of radically provocative and best-selling crime novels. He tried to reclaim his mother through fiction. It didn't work. He quit running and wrote this memoir. My Dark Places is Jean and James Ellroy's story--from 1958 to all points past and up to this moment. It is the story of a brilliant homicide detective named Bill Stoner, and of the investigation he and Ellroy undertook. It is also an unflinching autobiography and vivid reportage. This is James Ellroy's journey into and through his most forbidding memories.

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His five previous novels, American Tabloid, White Jazz, L.A. Confidential, The Big Nowhere, and The Black Dahlia, were international bestsellers.

Available in hardcover from Alfred A. Knopf: My Dark Places

Available from Random House AudioBooks: My Dark Places, L.A. Confidential

Also by James Ellroy: American Tabloid (hardcover), American Tabloid (paperback), White Jazz (hardcover), White Jazz (paperback), L.A. Confidential, The Big Nowhere, The Black Dahlia, Because the Night Blood on the Moon Brown's Requiem Clandestine Killer on the Road