What part does Robert Kennedy play in James Ellroys “Bloods a Rover”?”
James Ellroy’s “Blood’s a Rover” is the final volume in a massive, enormously complex trilogy of crime novels collectively titled “Underworld USA.” The publisher describes this new book as a “standalone sequel,” and it can, in fact, be read on its own. Still, it’s best viewed as an integral part of a larger, organic whole that examines, in unsparing detail, some of the most traumatic moments in recent American history. The series began in 1995 with “American Tabloid,” a violently revisionist account of the Camelot era. Moving from 1958 through November 1963, the novel mixes real historical figures (the Kennedys, Howard Hughes, Jimmy Hoffa, J. Edgar Hoover) with fictional characters (the sort of renegade law-enforcement officers that Ellroy does so well), using them to illuminate the defining events of the period: the 1960 presidential election, Castro’s Cuban revolution and the ongoing war between Robert F. Kennedy and the world of organized crime. “Cold Six Thousand” (2001) begins mom
By placing historical figures in seedy new situations – Howard Hughes, Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover figure prominently here – Ellroy takes a cynical look at some truly dirty deeds. Rover spans the years 1968 to 1972 (with a brief, modern-day coda), assessing the fallout from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well as the gathering storm for Chicago’s Democratic convention. Ellroy weaves in the FBI’s attempts to bring down black power organizations from within; a violent, mysterious armored car heist; radical extremists fulminating about Cuban revolution; and forbidden love shared by the radicals on both sides of the political equation. Ideologies clash and shift, as do alliances and allegiances. Many of Ellroy’s sturdiest themes (honor, loyalty and morality) are at play, revealing themselves in unexpected ways. Blood’s a Rover is, above all, a testament to the restless pursuit of principles; Ellroy deftly bends the narrative away from its early concern
