Hardtalk speaks to 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?