Helpful Score: 6
Very graphic sexually and murder/gore wise. Recommended for adult readers only!
Great story line though (based on a true story) and very compelling.
Great story line though (based on a true story) and very compelling.
Helpful Score: 6
a thriller, definitely. Not for the faint of heart in that it is very graphic.
Helpful Score: 5
Another Black Dahlia book I recommend this one over a lot of the other ones because of the author. Well written keeps you interested.
Helpful Score: 4
Complicated tale of murder, written by a popular crime writer. Enjoyed the characters and story - better than the movie.
Helpful Score: 3
Reads like a film noir - interesting tale of murder, corruption, and love.
Lori S. (GroovyGlitterGirl) -
Helpful Score: 2
Very dark and a bit hard to get started, but hauntingly intriguing once you do.
Helpful Score: 2
This book was a little drawn out for my liking but once I got into the book I had to know who did it. Many twists in this book that makes you think they figured it out but then someone else comes into play.
Robert L. (tennesseedog) -
Helpful Score: 2
This is a gritty story about a real world event in LA after WWII. The action is fast with the detectives investigating this gruesome murder behaving badly at times and with "stiff upper lip" at other times. Afterall, dealing with the types of individuals involved in the criminal underworld can not leave one unscarred. The author, James Ellroy, is the real deal. He himself has a checkered past and tragedy enough for any person. His mom was murdered when he was a youngster. And they never caught that murderer either (no one was arrested in this Black Dahlia case). The language is hot and the images are brutal, but this is the real world of police investigations.
Helpful Score: 2
Excellent detective novel based on the famous case. Pretty much the last word in Black Dahlia books, this is a fictional investigative account of the famous unsolved case which continues to baffle detectives all these years hence. Very gritty, very real. You'll forget it's a fictionalized account.
Helpful Score: 2
Knowing the true story, I wasn't really impressed with the fictionalized account. Good read, however, if you don't care too much about the facts of the case.
Helpful Score: 1
Powerful and angry. Read this book. Forget about the movie.
Helpful Score: 1
It was okay, very crudely written. I think I just got through it because I wanted to read it before I saw the movie.
Helpful Score: 1
Great book, but not for the faint of heart or stomach.
Helpful Score: 1
I found this book to be a rather strange read. Kind of unsettling actually. When the author at the end tells you more about his mom, then you realize where he was coming from earlier in the book.
Try as I might, I just couldn't get into this one. From the beginning, it uses a lot of what I can only assume is police terminology from that time period. So right away, I don't connect with the characters. The story just seemed to drag on and on. I made it about 2/3 of the way through but finally decided to just give up on this one.
I read this a long time ago, and I still remember how I liked it.
I could not get into this book at all.
This was a very compelling noir novel that digs deep into the underbelly of post-WWII Los Angeles and is framed around the gruesome Black Dahlia murder case. The heart of this novel focuses on the murder of Elizabeth Short, a young woman who came to Hollywood looking for possible stardom or love and who winds up as a prostitute, pornography star, and murdered. She was tortured, cut in half, and her body dumped in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The protagonist of the novel, Bucky Bleichert and his partner become obsessed with the murder and he continues to investigate it years after the case has gone cold. He must piece together the final days of her life which leads him to confront powerful members of both law enforcement and the business community but also his own demons. The case has so many twists and turns that it will leave you breathless right up till the end.
This was ultimately a very disturbing novel that kept you turning the pages. It is a very plausible telling of the unsolved case and although the killer is revealed at the end, the overall descriptions of violence, corruption, and sexual depravity leave a very lasting impression. This novel was made into a movie directed by Brian De Palma in 2006. I'll most likely be looking out for it.
This was ultimately a very disturbing novel that kept you turning the pages. It is a very plausible telling of the unsolved case and although the killer is revealed at the end, the overall descriptions of violence, corruption, and sexual depravity leave a very lasting impression. This novel was made into a movie directed by Brian De Palma in 2006. I'll most likely be looking out for it.
A great mystery novel, a good read.
I started the book just before seeing the movie, and I ended up enjoying the book more. The book offers more character development and detail in scenes that were sort of glossed over in the film, scenes that in the end played an important role in the plot of the book. Ellroy paints a great picture of SoCal in the '40s - I look forward to reading his other books.
Great cop lingo -- fast paced, full of action. A great read!
Written like a true story (which it is supposedly based on), people say it is "noir" but I didn't find it all that dark- much less "black" (yes I know what film noir is... this isn't it). This is a detective/murder mystery. Overall, an ok fast read, written in 1940's vernacular- makes you want to know how much of it is true
I found this book to be intriguing, heart-wrenching and incredibly shocking. I would've never guessed the ending...
complicated but a good read
Gripping story from beginning to end - it reads the way people talked in old police movies from the 40's & 50's but it's very compelling.
A slow start but picks up-an okay read.
slow reading . I found it dull and rather boring.
Difficult to get started with but once it grabs you, it's hard to put down. Good read.
This book was good, however it was very gory. A couple of times I had to put it down because the violence was too much. I am glad I read to the end.
Outstanding. Hard to leave. Movie follows closely.
This book is a wild ride- it takes you all over the place in the lives of the three main characters and the great thing is, you want to go.
I thought it was a little slow...
A fictionalized version of the 1947 Black Dahlia case in Los Angeles.
Some lingo of that era.
Some lingo of that era.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Narrator Hoye firmly nails young world-weary cop Bucky Bleichert in this audio version of Ellroy's 1987 crime novel. The flawed boxer-turned-lawman becomes obsessed with L.A.'s notorious unsolved 1947 torture-murder case, as well as the secret life of his missing partner, Lee Blanchard. Hoye proves a fine match for Ellroy's hardboiled prose, shuttling easily between hard and soft tones, crystallizing Bleichert's mix of cynicism, confusion, hurt and rage. Set in booming postwar Los Angeles, this tale of ambition, deceit and obsession builds to symphonic proportions. Throughout, Hoye skillfully modulates his narration to distinctly render each character'corrupt cops, city officials, pimps, GIs, Mexican bar owners, prostitutes, society matrons and even the sound of a bullet piercing canvas. Hoye especially shines during heated police interrogations, able to shift his voice on a dime. The audio includes a new afterword from Ellroy, which might have delivered more punch had Ellroy read it himself. But in terms of this gritty, sprawling novel, Hoye was unquestionably the right man for the job.
Copyright ' Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve
Starred Review. Narrator Hoye firmly nails young world-weary cop Bucky Bleichert in this audio version of Ellroy's 1987 crime novel. The flawed boxer-turned-lawman becomes obsessed with L.A.'s notorious unsolved 1947 torture-murder case, as well as the secret life of his missing partner, Lee Blanchard. Hoye proves a fine match for Ellroy's hardboiled prose, shuttling easily between hard and soft tones, crystallizing Bleichert's mix of cynicism, confusion, hurt and rage. Set in booming postwar Los Angeles, this tale of ambition, deceit and obsession builds to symphonic proportions. Throughout, Hoye skillfully modulates his narration to distinctly render each character'corrupt cops, city officials, pimps, GIs, Mexican bar owners, prostitutes, society matrons and even the sound of a bullet piercing canvas. Hoye especially shines during heated police interrogations, able to shift his voice on a dime. The audio includes a new afterword from Ellroy, which might have delivered more punch had Ellroy read it himself. But in terms of this gritty, sprawling novel, Hoye was unquestionably the right man for the job.
Copyright ' Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserve
I like this book I was very please they knew the black Dahlia killer.
This book is a mystery about a young girl that was killed in 1947. The victim makes the headlines as the black dahlia. It starts the biggest man hunt in California's history.
the book is much better than the movie
VISERAL
If I had to come up with one word to describe this fictional re-telling of the famous 1947 Black Dahlia murder, viseral would be it. This is far from an intellectual mystery/thriller. Rather, it hits you in the guts emotionally - time and time again.
I expected a story that just basically fleshed out the real murder and its investigation. I was sooooo wrong. I mostly listened to this book on audio, and almost gave up after the first two CD's because it was full - and I mean FULL - of boxing slang, 40's cop slang, and ethnic and sexual slurs - and we hadn't even gotten the to murder yet!
If I had paid attention to the tag line under the title of the book (by the author of LA Confidential), that would have been my clue to the dark and corrupt nature of this novel. I haven't read LA Confidential, but I've seen the movie. 'Nuff said. (And yes, I had totally forgotten that The Black Dahlia was also made into a movie a few years ago and have never seen it.)
But just as the fictional detectives were drawn into the investigation, I was drawn into it also. Almost compelled to keep reading and listening. And the plot was so intricate that I HAD to pay attention. The final solution to the mystery came as a complete shock - although it made total sense in retrospect.
So in sum, even though this book was totally out of the box for me, I recommend it. It's an excellent mystery/thriller.
If I had to come up with one word to describe this fictional re-telling of the famous 1947 Black Dahlia murder, viseral would be it. This is far from an intellectual mystery/thriller. Rather, it hits you in the guts emotionally - time and time again.
I expected a story that just basically fleshed out the real murder and its investigation. I was sooooo wrong. I mostly listened to this book on audio, and almost gave up after the first two CD's because it was full - and I mean FULL - of boxing slang, 40's cop slang, and ethnic and sexual slurs - and we hadn't even gotten the to murder yet!
If I had paid attention to the tag line under the title of the book (by the author of LA Confidential), that would have been my clue to the dark and corrupt nature of this novel. I haven't read LA Confidential, but I've seen the movie. 'Nuff said. (And yes, I had totally forgotten that The Black Dahlia was also made into a movie a few years ago and have never seen it.)
But just as the fictional detectives were drawn into the investigation, I was drawn into it also. Almost compelled to keep reading and listening. And the plot was so intricate that I HAD to pay attention. The final solution to the mystery came as a complete shock - although it made total sense in retrospect.
So in sum, even though this book was totally out of the box for me, I recommend it. It's an excellent mystery/thriller.
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 Dehlia-and so begins the greatest manhunt in California history.
Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bieichert & Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops, friends, & rivals in love with the same woman. But both are obsessed with the Dehlia-driven by dark needs to know everything about her past, to capture her killer, to possess the woman even in death. Their quest will take them on a hellish journey through the underbelly of postwar Hollywood, to the core of the dead girl's twisted life, past the extremes of their own psyches-into a region of total madness.
Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bieichert & Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops, friends, & rivals in love with the same woman. But both are obsessed with the Dehlia-driven by dark needs to know everything about her past, to capture her killer, to possess the woman even in death. Their quest will take them on a hellish journey through the underbelly of postwar Hollywood, to the core of the dead girl's twisted life, past the extremes of their own psyches-into a region of total madness.
Good book!
