Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales (2004) by James Ellroy collects the Demon Dog of American crime fiction’s most unhinged nonfiction pieces—a blood-splattered love letter to Los Angeles’ underbelly that blends reportage, memoir, and hallucinatory prose. Originally published in GQ and The Los Angeles Times Magazine, these essays see Ellroy applying his trademark staccato style to real-life cases like the Black Dahlia autopsy photos (“Bitch’s Killer Still at Large”) and the LAPD’s Rampart scandal (“The Tooth of Crime”), while weaving in fictional interludes featuring his recurring psychopath narrator “Rhino Rick.” The Vintage trade paperback original, with its stark black-and-white crime scene photo cover, perfectly captures Ellroy’s descent into what he calls “the sewer of my soul”—particularly in the memoir pieces about his mother’s 1958 unsolved murder (the obsession fueling all his work).
What makes this collection essential for Ellroy completists is its raw, unfiltered voice—the journalistic pieces read like outtakes from My Dark Places, while the fictional vignettes preview the crazed cadences of his later Blood’s a Rover. The 2004 first printing is increasingly scarce, especially in the rare signed editions Ellroy inscribed with his trademark red-ink paw print. A bridge between his memoir period and the underworld-obsessed “Second L.A. Quartet,” Destination: Morgue! proves even Ellroy’s “factual” writing operates at felony intensity.
