The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy

Book Overview

The highly acclaimed novel based on America's most infamous unsolved murder case. Dive into 1940s Los Angeles as two cops spiral out of control in their hunt for The Black Dahlia's killer in this powerful thriller that is "brutal and at the same time believable" (New York Times).
On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a Los Angeles vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0446698873
• ISBN13: 9780446698870
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

"Warrants was going after the real bad guys, not rousting winos and weenie wagglers in front of the

Black Dahlia is a crime thriller based upon a famous case in the 1940's. A Hollywood starlet named Elizabeth Short was found dead and hideously mutilated in a vacant lot. This case was never solved but has fascinated criminal investigators and the public ever since. Ellroy's novel is told from the viewpoint of an ex-boxer, Bucky Bleichert, who joins the police force and ends up investigating the Black Dahlia murder. Bucky becomes fascinated with the murder victim, as well as with femme fatale Madeline, the nymphomania heir of a corrupt real-estate dynasty. Bucky's partner is a rogue cop hyped on Benzedrine who seems to have more money than he should on a cop salary. Bucky falls for his partner's girl and socializes with them in an intimate triangle. Ellroy's writing is flamboyant and edgy, using gritty cop lingo to describe the seamy underbelly of Hollywood. The story manages to reveal the twisted psychology of a cop on the edge, and the moral ambiguity of using violence to protect the peace. Bucky's emotional state is touchingly portrayed; a deep sadness and depression at his balancing act between sadism and masochism that plays out in every area of his life. Ellroy portrays the 1940's with clarity and wit, with all its beauty, glamour and pre-civil rights brutality. Highly recommended!

Simply the Best

James Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia" is almost too dark, too gripping and too believable. It stands out among a crowd of mysteries (sub-genre police procedural) as simply a great novel. Most mysteries I put down and forget that I've read them. The characters from Ellroy's noir vision of L.A. in the late 1940s and early 1950s are indelibly etched in my mind, as is Ellroy's characterization of the period and location itself. This is the most visceral book I've ever read. I picked up this book myself from Partners and Crime's Top 100 shelf (P & C is an awesome mystery bookstore in Manhattan's Greenwich Village). I loaned my copy to a friend, who gave it back to me a week later and said he didn't want to read the rest of the series or any other mystery novel again in his life -- this one was perfect and anything else would just ruin his ability to savor "The Black Dahlia". I loaned it to a second friend who finished it in a week, and then went out and bought the complete Ellroy ouevre. This is not a one-night read unless you have strong eyes, strong coffee, heroic concentration and an iron will. If you get a chance, hear Ellroy read from these books in person. Sequencing Ellroy's books is tough, because they're all similar in terms of time frame, setting, and characters. The L.A. trilogy plus one is: * 1947: The Black Dahlia* 1950: The Big Nowhere* 1951: L. A. Confidential * 1958: White JazzDudley Smith also appears in Ellroy's second novel, "Clandestine", set in 1951.

Ellroy's First Masterpiece

This first novel in the much-praised "L.A. Quartet" is one of the great American works of art. Up there with Twain, Fitzgerald, Chandler, Hammett and Hemingway. "Dark" is too bright a word for Ellroy's fiction. Another reviewer called Ellroy "the Caravaggio of modern fiction." That says it all. In the "Dahlia", a real woman named Betty Short, whose butchered corpse appeared in a vacant lot one morning in real-life L.A. circa 1947, Ellroy found his essential enigma and his battering muse. This famous, unsolved murder victim becomes in the novel, a terrifying emblem for his own oedipal quest, a quest that he fearlessly explored in his memoir *My Dark Places*. It is a work of genius, and we are all the richer for it. Its scope is epic. Its tone is sharpened ebony. Nothing in Ellroy's previous novels prepares you for this. It is also a book that repays multiple readings. It's only outdone by each subsequent novel. Full-blown addiction is the only way I can describe my response to Ellroy's fiction. It will jazz you and haunt you and inhabit your dreams.

In Memory of Elizabeth Short

Back in the mid-1980's, The Black Dahlia was the first James Ellroy novel that I had ever read. I have since become a huge fan, reading everything he has written, including a personal account of his own mother's murder, My Dark Places. My admiration for Mr. Ellroy as an author is unparalleled. Nowhere is his genius for capturing the noir era/LAPD corruption/tarnished Tinseltown of Los Angeles more evident than in The Black Dahlia. This densely plotted tale expertly exposes the gritty, seamy side of post-war Los Angeles. He also writes it like an homage to its victim, Elizabeth Short, whose murderer is unknown to this day. She was the classic Hollywood victim. To his credit, Mr. Ellroy does not shy away from exposing the brutal hypocrisy of Hollywood in the 1940's and 1950's. Mr. Ellroy's books are not for the squeamish; his blunt, staccato-like dialogue can be somewhat off-putting. Anyone, however, interested in a writer who delivers a story packed with interesting characters and an intricate plot, The Black Dahlia - along with Mr. Ellroy's other novels - is the choice for you.

Gritty, tough, very intense.

There I was you see, I walked into the book store, the whole place smelled like old moldy books. So I see this old broad behind the counter. Had a couple of miles on her, sort of like me. So I ask her, trying not to sound too stupid, "Do you have any Elway books?" She looked at me, smiled and said "who?". Elway, you know, wrote L.A.Confidential". She said "Oh, you mean Ellroy". She then walks over to the used paper back mystery section and said, "All I have by Ellroy is "The Black Dahlia". It's based on a murder that happened in L.A. a few years ago". So I picked my brain, thinking, " yeah I read something about this Ellroy guy in the newspaper a couple of years ago". So I buy the book, looks like it is on its last legs, pages are almost yellow and ready to fall out. I take the thing home, read the back cover, get an idea of the story and start to read it. Then after reading a few pages, I'm hooked. I'm turning page after page, my eyes feel like two hot burning coals. I'm sweating, my brain feels like it's been scooped out, slammed against the wall and it's oozing down like cauliflower mixed with vanilla yogurt. I feel like laying two raw pieces of pork chops alongside my head so I can cool off. I read this book in two days. My whole life came to a stop. Never did have a clue on how it would end; yeah there were little clues here and there, but my little pea-picking brain never picked them up. Now I says to myself, "this Ellroy guy can really write". Now I'm afraid to read any more of his books. I don't want my life to come to a stop again. I'm an old retired copper, read my share of mysterys in my day, but I've got stuff to do around the house, I can't just read all day. So be aware ! Be prepared when you read this book. It's gritty, it's tough, it makes most mystery thrillers read like Peter Pan. I'll keep this book forever...Very intense, not for the light hearted! Make sure that you are ready for this. It ain't like picking daisies or taking a walk in the park with fido. This is a knock down, drag out, real life thriller that will knock your socks off. Maybe someday in the middle of winter when it's raining baby elephants and I can't do anything else, I'll even think about reading another Ellroy book.I don't think that my heart can take it......