About this title: This violent, brutal portrait of postwar Los Angeles marked the beginning of James Ellroy's long career of portraying the darker sides of the glamorous west-coast city.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780445405257ISBN:0445405252
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. cover has wear and pages in good condition. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Warner Books
Date Published: 1998
ISBN-13:9780446674362ISBN:0446674362
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Good plus--no writing in book--slight rumple on cover. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 336 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780446698870ISBN:0446698873
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. General paperback wear, no folds or creases, no markings. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 337 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Mysterious Pr
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780445405257ISBN:0445405252
Description: Good. CT-Spine is well creased. Covers show wear a the edges and corners. Average Reading copy. Pages tanning. Used books may have price stickers. Most orders ship on the next business day. read more
Edition: Book Club Edition. ISBN: 9780739473603; 0739473603
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Hardcover, w/jacket as shown. D/j shows only minor shopwear & pp lightly tanned. 337 p. Hardcover. read more
Description: Fine. 0446698873 Excellent condition Soft cover book, clean pages, No creases to spine, this book is Near NEW! Shop & Save With US. read more
Description: Very Good. 0446698873 Great condition Soft Cover book, clean pages, mild creases to spine, light edge/corner rubs, this book is GREAT! Shop & Save With US. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Mysterious Pr
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780445405257ISBN:0445405252
Description: Good. No Jacket. Edges Shelf Worn, Two Cover Corners Creased, Spine Creased, Sticker Front Cover, Edges Tanned, Interior Unmarked, Good Copy. read more
"This book is a zinger, front to back. Narrated by a jaded boxer/detective/Warrants cop in the 1940's, the blood and guts of Hollywood's crime scene is spilled drop by drop---word by cutting word hits hard in detached cop lingo.
The Black Dahlia was the nickname for a woman found sliced in half: Her organs removed, her blood drained, and her smile cut from ear to ear. This story is based on the real-life Black Dahlia murder, which remains unsolved to this day. In the book, however, author James Ellroy ties the loose ends together with sinister ease when the reader accompanies detective Bucky Bleichert in the discovery of Elizabeth Short's murderer.
Along with the grisly nature of the murder and the crooked tricks of the cop trade, the hell-on-earth worlds of Tijuana, Ensenada and underworld L.A. are described in such detail that I finished the book wide-eyed, forced to the point of nausea to witness the real, everyday human capacity for sowing, reaping and wallowing in lives of pure evil. Do you believe people are innately good? Don't want that belief challenged and run through the blender? Then this book is not for you! Ellroy writes like the boxer who narrates: He dances in the ring with purpose, and wins with a solid KO. The reader will be lucky to get up and see the sunny side of the street ever again, without spying the spiders crawling in the cracks as well."
"Ellroy, heard enough about him recently? Another GR craze. I've been putting off this review for two weeks now, and honestly, I still don't want to write it. The thing is, while I only enjoyed this to an "OK" level, I really can understand the commotion surrounding the guy. He wrote this with great insight and intensity; it has a brilliantly complex storyline, and it is very well executed. The web of connections are aplenty, it has a ferocious acuteness to it, and there was a period of time during my reading when I was enthralled, flipping through the pages at a rapid-fire pace. For this short period of time I couldn't put it down; it felt much like a thriller. But I couldn't keep my focus. Too many quick, concrete details. Not enough depth. Not for me.
And of course Ellroy the man, the persona, is fascinating. I wish I had his balls, his level of testosterone, his blunt but articulate, poignant way with words. His passion and intensity. (There's that word again, but you can't avoid it with him: Ellroy = intensity.)
And he is more than a genre writer-- one need only look to this novel's boxing scene, or think about some of its overriding principles of chaos, corruption, and selfishness to see this. If you're into crime, noir, detective, or mystery novels, you're crazy not to try this. I couldn't help but notice that most of my GR friends liked it, giving it four or five stars-- but most of them had it on a genre-related shelf. In other words, they were probably predisposed to liking it, probably having read and enjoyed other books that display similar themes. And yet, the average rating for this book from all of those on GR is 3.54: that's pretty low compared to most books, and I think it says something about the chances of you liking this. And yet again!!!--- one need only read Montambo's review of My Dark Places to see that you could still like Ellroy's stuff without digging any of the genres he fits into (or transcends).
So I can't say that you won't like The Black Dahlia if you're not into any of those genres, but I'd also say that you're more likely to, if you are. And it bears repeating that his writing does go beyond any simple, narrow, genre-related category.
But, me? I'm done with Ellroy. For me he fits into a group of writers that I realize are great, but I just the same, happen to not enjoy. Updike, Morrison, some of McCarthy; there's a number of them out there, and I'm adding Ellroy to the list.
"This book was ALSO a struggle for me to finish. My book club read the book so I felt the need to finish... but, honestly - the back story between the cops was not entertaining and made the book drag on and on. The actual crime and clues part was interesting... but seriously - why did we need to read about the boxing? boring... Also, some parts were pretty gruesome. I don't recommend reading."
"This book has taught me, if I'm going to read a book about something that really happened, I need to do some research. Let me go ahead and throw this out there: This book uses some facts from the case, but fuses fact with fiction. I didn't know that until I got to the end of the book and read that the two main characters, other than the Dahlia were made up. Before I got that far, I couldn't understand why the case was never solved because the book told me who did it. Wow, did I feel dumb.
Before the last few chapters, I would have only given this book one bookmark. It was not what I expected. It is kind of dirty (yes, I'm being a prude again). There's a lot of sex and it's pretty morbid. I expected the morbidity, just not all the sex. Everything I read about the Dahlia says people speculated she was a hooker but it wasn't true, so when the book kind of played off that, I didn't know what to believe.
The last few chapters, however, bring it all together. I was very surprised at who was pegged the killer and even more surprised at how "Bucky" handled the news.
I'm more of a high heel and handbag book kind of girl. I personally would say this is more of a guys book about cops and boxing.
I did think it was written well. When I read it, I really felt like I was in the 40's. I really like, looking back now, how many facts he used in the book and how he played off them to make this a novel. Everyone can hear about a murder and put a story together about how it happened, but this was a good story.
Looking back at the writing, especially towards the end, I'm going to give this book 3 bookmarks. If you can push through the first 3/4 of the book, the last 1/4 is great and an intriguing read to find out who's the Dahlia's killer (fake killer, they never solved it)."
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