James Ellroy wrote this book in order for him to tell his own story about Elizabeth Short or The Black Dahlia. Elizabeth is found in a vacant lot in January 1947. She was mutilated, tortured, murdered, cut in half and dumped in the course of two horrendous days. Using real-life people, and some fictional characters, Ellroy has shown us what probably happened to Elizabeth Short, who was The Black Dahlia. The story is about two young policemen who become involved in the investigation of the Black Dahlia's murder, and it depicts how this event shaped and changed their lives. Both men become totally absorbed and the book shows how their lives were forever changed and sent spinning off the rails from this one horrific murder. When I read Ellroy's final words on the book, I found that he too, in his own way, was obsessed by the Dahlia, even though he was born just after she died. He explains that it was almost a parallel story of what actually happened to his own mother in the 1950's. The book is graphic and explicit, but at the same time it shows the strength and goodness that is in some people as opposed to the absolute derangement of others. It depicts the psychotic mind as well as or better than any other book I've read about this. This book is as noir as any book can get. It's full of obsessions, lies, psychoses, sex, torture and murder. For anyone with a queasy stomach, the book might be way too much to take. For me it was like climbing into a tub of bathtub gin, and not coming up for air until I finished the book. it actually wrung me out, but I kept turning pages. No one does crime like James Ellroy, and nobody does it with so explicitly, and with so much aplomb. In a James Ellroy world, just about anything is possible, and the tension does not leave until the very end of the book. So expect the unexpected, be prepared for some pretty horrific scenarios, get angry and frustrated with the main characters, and fall into the world of post-war LA. ( )

A rare 5 star review for a detective story. The book read like Raymond Chandler on steroids. Hard boiled 1940's dialogue with the sex and violence that RC inferred. More dense and less dependence on sense of place though the seedier parts of LA and Tijuana brought you in, front and center. Threads and layers were many and well meshed with an ending that kept twisting. Rarely did I stop and think of "who was that" or miss a storyline. Bucky and Lee and Kay and the rest were almost outrageous but I bought into their desperation. JE wrote it well with dialogue and references set it in post war America that would be scowled at in these more "sensitive" times. JE really seemed to feel the heartbeat of that time and place. ( )

This one has definitely broadened my sense of what hard-boiled fiction can do. Unlike Chandler and Hammett, Ellroy gets the reader neck-deep in the moral turpitude of 1940s LA.

The sordid details can distract from the plot at times, but I did end up deeply invested in the monster behind Short's murder. Bucky's tone is severe, his accounts graphic, and for this reason I missed the humour of voices such as, for instance, Philip Marlowe. I finished this in a few sittings, feverishly reading it not out of a sense of suspense, but out of a morbid desire for closure; an antidote for all the sickness. ( )

Signed

The plot revolves around a murder mystery set in Los Angeles in the 1940s. They found an unidentified young woman disemboweled and mutilated in a vacant lot. The two detectives, both ex-boxers, become obsessed with the case to where they literally destroy their own lives to solve the case.

As much as I wanted to enjoy The Black Dahlia, I found it to be a dull novel trying to be a stylistic breakthrough in crime fiction writing. Is it possible to write a crime fiction novel with no suspense at all? Active 2: The novel portrays the worst aspects of human nature and the dark side of LA in the 40s, with gross ambiance. The writing style was praised for its fast pace, but it's overrated with too much slang and testosterone-filled dialogue, lacking suspense and story building. That’s not my cup of tea. I prefer quality writing, even if it’s not “innovative”. ( )