James Ellroy - Crime Writer

To mark HARDtalk's 20th anniversary, here is another chance to see Stephen Sackur's 2014 interview with the man who has been called America's greatest living crime writer.

Through works such as the Black Dahlia and LA Confidential, James Ellroy has created a uniquely dark portrait of America. His is a nightmare vision of crazed killers and corrupt cops. He writes of what he knows - his own mother was murdered when he was a child. So is that simple, terrible fact the key to understanding all the words he has ever written?