how would you describe what "perfidia" is?"perfidia" is a 700-page novel in real time. >> this is pretty dense. >> heavy. if you buy by the pound, i'm a rich man. it's the day before the japanese attack on pearl harbor. a japanese family is found dead in their home in highland park. bam. the attack hits. racial hatred grips the city. the japanese internment begins. land is handed a hot potato politically. what do we do with this murder case? do we short shrift it? and as the grave injustice of the japanese internment commences, and innocent japanese are hassled, thrown into the horse paddocks at santa anita racetrack,la lapd have to grapp with this. are they decent folks? how do we benefit from this? do we profit? it's a big, big book. >> since you love history, how then would you describe in the animanaluaals of american histo japanese internment? >> it's the single greatest sustained abrogation of civil liberties in american history. these people were denied due process. most of them were american citizens. it was entirely u

his latest novel "perfidia" is in stores now. and applause ] ♪ >> seth: thank you so much for being here. >> what a kick! pub week on this tv show. >> seth: thank you so much. >> god bless you. thanks for having me. >> seth: it's great to have you. i've been a fan of your books for a long time. for those who don't know, how would you explain your work. >> l.a., come on vacation, go home on probation. [ laughter ] >> seth: that sounds about right. very crime centric. very l.a. centric. >> divorce center that's where i go when women divorce me. >> seth: you go back to l.a. and you go back to crime. >> yeah. and i go back to writing books so i can write the check. yeah. >> seth: that's very good. that's very good. you -- this is the first -- now you wrote an l.a. quartet, your wrote four books -- then you wrote a trilogy -- >> yes. >> seth: outside of l.a. now you're back to l.a. and this is the first in a new quartet. what? how? and when you approach going back to l.a. was it -- is it because you're just drawn to those type of stor

and then we'll turn to a conversation with best-selling author james ellroy, whose latest, "perfidia," takes a look at los angeles on the eve of pearl harbor and law enforcement in the time of crisis and the internment of japanese americans. those conversations are coming up right now. ♪

perfidia."ed " thank you for being with us. did you decide that you wanted to go back into time to tell this story? >> in world war ii i finally found an event large enough to sate my extreme literary megalomania. it is the most catastrophic event in world history, and i set my novel entirely during the first month of america's reign in world war ii. l.a., world war ii. >> how did you prepare yourself to write this book? >> i live in the past. and as you said in the lead-in, i have never used a computer, i tv, i do not go to the movies. i do not read newspapers, i've never made a cell phone call. it was another era for me. i live in the past. ergo, i've immersed myself in other periods of history. america after world war ii, the 50's and 60's, and i'm going back to the big show its self. >> what do you want us to learn from this big show? >> i do not want you to learn anything, i want you to feel the characters. i want you to feel the time its self. i want you to live l.a., december 1941, as obsessively as i wrote it. >> now, t