W. S. Walcott: James Ellroy is a good author. 95% of the novel is well written, the exception being some dialogue-particularly when confessions are being made-that comes off as forced. The story had the potential to be great, but a total lack of likable characters and about 50 pages too many hold the novel back. As far as being a noir story, think classic noir as opposed to cheesy noir.
United States on Jul 04, 2022
Wayne Wall: This is the first time I read James Ellroy. I have become a fan, great writer. He has a great knack for bringing impossible characters to life.
Canada on Mar 14, 2021
Fair Play: Enjoyed the book even though I found it disturbing. Not so much the graphic details of the murder of poor Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia), more so the psychological characteristics of the characters including the main character Bucky Bleichert, the LAPD cop. It wasn’t until I finished the book, I realized this novel uses a lot of true facts from the real Black Dahlia killing in 1947 Los Angeles. Then on learning something about the author, things started to drop in place as to why I found this book disturbing.
Short was a young woman murdered in 1947, her body cut in half and discarded in Los Angeles, in a notorious and unsolved crime. According to one source, throughout the author’s youth, Ellroy used Short as a surrogate for his conflicting emotions and desires based on his own mother’s rape and murder when Ellroy was 10 years old. His confusion and trauma led to a period of intense clinical depression, from which he recovered only gradually.
These personal issues are clear to see in this novel. Bleichert (surely the author?), his cop partner and buddy Lee Blanchard, and Kay Lake are the main characters at the centre of the novel. Initially, there is a...
United Kingdom on Jun 24, 2020
Francesca Moretti: Ottime condizioni
Italy on Apr 09, 2020
Subir Hajra Chaudhuri: Hardboiled
India on Aug 21, 2019
Maria de Jesus Alvarez Gonzalez: Punto de partida para la cuatrilogía de L.A de James Ellroy, pero a la vez, puede ser disfrutado en sus propios términos. Imprescindible para amantes del genero criminal.
Mexico on Sep 09, 2018
Martin Zook: Violence and darkness aside, the worlds of Cormac McCarthy and James Elroy share important common ground. Both are populated by outsiders on quests to define themselves in a most imperfect world.
First, in the interest of full disclosure, Elizabeth Andersen's wonderful The Mythos of Cormac McCarthy is the first I am aware to identify the theme in McCarthy's works. The action of outsiders in search of their identity certainly holds true in Ellroy's Black Dahlia.
Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, the fictional cops on the Black Dahlia case in Los Angeles, are both rogue cops. Blanchard is Bucky's mentor and goes so rogue that he crosses the Mexican border (also big in McCarthy's works) in going AWOL from the LAPD. Bucky is guilty of suppressing evidence, in addition to assaulting fellow officers, breaking and entering, going on sexual rampages with a suspect in the case, and dereliction of duty, which in Bucky's case seems like a misdemeanor.
This is a deeply personal book for the author, for the uninitiated. It is dedicated to his mother, who like Elizabeth Short, the real Black Dahlia, was murdered without a resolution to the crime. Fertility, birth, and the...
United States on May 23, 2014
Paul Cassel: This book is truly a masterpiece not only of the genre, but of literature. It is, like many masterpieces, a difficult read.
As others have said, this is a complete novel. It's complex. The plot weaves around and resolves well, if not in the best taste. The writing is crisp but not staccato. You can get details from other four or five star reviews.
So where is the difficult? It was, for this reviewer, in several areas. The first is the book is written in genuine 1940's American-ese which apparently used an utterly different idiom than modern American-ease. For example, what does it mean when a bunch of street bums 'wave their short dogs' at police? What is the 'high sign'? (No, it's not the middle finger salute - that made no sense in context).
All too often the author goes on for a few pages and then concludes with one of these obsolete sayings or doings meaning the naive reader would lose the entire meaning of those pages. I'd have liked to have seen a glossary.
The next issue is the motivation of the characters. None of them made any sense to me. I couldn't see real people behaving this way in reaction to events. Here's one small thing. The police...
United States on Jul 25, 2013
| James Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia": A Gripping Thriller | The All Souls Trilogy Collection: Complete Boxed Set of All Three Books | "The Last Monument" by Michael C. Grumley - A Captivating Thriller of Epic Proportions | |
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| B2B Rating |
73
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97
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96
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| Sale off | $18 OFF | ||
| Total Reviews | 27 reviews | 467 reviews | 1 reviews |
| Best Sellers Rank | #756 in Hard-Boiled Mystery#4,223 in Police Procedurals #12,230 in Suspense Thrillers | #38 in Occult Fiction#441 in Suspense Thrillers#443 in Fantasy Romance | #105 in Conspiracy Thrillers #403 in Historical Thrillers #612 in Political Thrillers |
| ISBN-10 | 0446698873 | 0147517729 | |
| Customer Reviews | 4.2/5 stars of 3,709 ratings | 4.8/5 stars of 10,807 ratings | 4.3/5 stars of 20,151 ratings |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0446698870 | 978-0147517722 | 979-8632708500 |
| Police Procedurals (Books) | Police Procedurals | ||
| Language | English | English | English |
| Dimensions | 5.25 x 0.89 x 8 inches | 3.9 x 5.7 x 8.6 inches | 5 x 0.82 x 8 inches |
| Item Weight | 10.4 ounces | 0.113 ounces | 12.5 ounces |
| Suspense Thrillers | Suspense Thrillers | Suspense Thrillers | |
| Paperback | 353 pages | 1760 pages | 325 pages |
| Hard-Boiled Mystery | Hard-Boiled Mystery | ||
| Publisher | Mysterious Press | Penguin Books; Reprint edition | Independently published |
United States on Oct 01, 2023