Blood on the Moon (novel)

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Blood on the Moon is a crime fiction novel written by famous and noteworthy crime author James Ellroy. Released in 1983, it is the first installment of a three part book series. The trilogy itself is often titled The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy. The novel is followed by Because the Night, and Suicide Hill. While they are written in multiple perspectives and narrated omnisciently, the main character in all three novels is Lloyd Hopkins.

[edit] Plot summary

The story begins in 1965 during the Watts Riots in Los Angeles, California. 23-year-old Lloyd Hopkins is still with the National Guard and is deployed to help handle the situation. It is during this riot that Hopkins kills his first man, a deranged armory sergeant who was hunting down and killing African Americans.

18 years later Hopkins is now a sergeant with the L.A.P.D. and has the highest number of arrests of any officer in the department's history. He is considered a genius by many of his associates for his uncanny ability to make intuitive leaps of logic when tracking down criminals. Soon his abilities are put to the test when he investigates the brutal murder of a woman who was disembowled in her apartment. Hopkins quickly deduces that the person responsible for this murder has in fact been killing women since the late 1960s, but has never been caught because he always changes his modus operandi.

A subplot of the novel involves Hopkins' relationship with his family. He adores his three daughters and deeply loves his wife, though he is terminally unfaithful to her. His wife loves Lloyd, but begins to realize that his habits are not healthy for their children, particularly his propensity for telling them about the cases that he has worked on.

[edit] Trivia

• Blood on the Moon was adapted into the 1987 film Cop, which starred James Woods.
• Blood on the Moon was the first James Ellroy novel to be adapted to film.