I anticipated the stories to have an aesthetic closer to that of Ellroy's own fiction, though in retrospect I see it would have been better to anticipate instead a glimpse from another vantage of Ellroy's interests and resonations. Certainly there were few if any stories that reminded me of Underworld USA or the first L.A. Quartet. The one exception is perhaps "Harlem Nocturn".

It's also interesting that I've listened to these stories probably twice and perhaps three times, for some of them. Yet none struck me as familiar upon listening in 2020. ( )