The Black Dahlia (novel)
1st ed. cover
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| Author | James Ellroy |
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| Cover artist | Jacket design by Paul Gamarello Jacket illustration by Stephen Peringer Art direction by Barbara Buck |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | L.A. Quartet |
| Genre | Crime fiction, noir, historical fiction |
| Publisher | The Mysterious Press |
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Publication date
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September 1987 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback), audio cassette, audio CD, and audio download |
| Pages | 325 pp (1st ed., hardcover) |
| ISBN | (1st ed., hardcover) |
| OCLC | 15517895 |
| 813/.54 19 | |
| LC Class | PS3555.L6274 B53 1987 |
| Preceded by | Killer on the Road (1986) |
| Followed by | The Big Nowhere (1988) |
The Black Dahlia (1987) is a crime fiction novel novel by American author James Ellroy. Its subject is the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles, California, which received wide attention because her corpse was mutilated. The investigation ultimately led to a broad police corruption scandal.
This book is considered the one that gained Ellroy critical attention as a serious writer of literature. The Black Dahlia is the first book in Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, a cycle of novels set in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. He portrays the city in this period as a hotbed of political corruption and depravity. The Quartet continues with The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz.
James Ellroy dedicated The Black Dahlia, "To Geneva Hilliker Ellroy 1915–1958 Mother: Twenty-nine Years Later, This Valediction in Blood." He included an epigraph: "Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, My first lost keeper, to love and look at later. —Anne Sexton."
The novel opens during the 1940s and World War II; it is narrated by LAPD officer Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert, a tough, pragmatic former boxer. Living alone, he is estranged from his father, a member of the German American Bund. When his father's membership is discovered by the police, Bleichert preserved his job by reporting two Japanese-American friends (Sam Murakami and Hideo Ashida), resulting in their deportation to Manzanar. He earns a reputation as a "stoolie", and feels guilt for his action. While caught up in the Zoot Suit Riots, he meets Officer Lee Blanchard. The savvy, well-connected Blanchard is sure of promotion to Sergeant, while Bleichert feels limited as a radio car patrolman in Bunker Hill. Blanchard's ascension to a Detective bureau is threatened, however, by his living with a woman, Kay Lake, to whom he is not married, in violation of police policy. Lake is the former girlfriend of a gangster whose arrest by Blanchard helped make his reputation.
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Wikipedia