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The Black Dahlia

Part of L. A. Quartet

Author James Ellroy
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Paperback
$19.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Aug 12, 2025 | 368 Pages | 9798217007844
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The first novel in The L.A. Quartet. The Black Dahlia is the haunting and harrowing book that put James Ellroy on the map as one of the most electrifying writers on the scene.

On January 15, 1947, the brutally mutilated body of Elizabeth Short is found in a vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia, becoming the center of a media frenzy and cultural fixation.

Caught up in the investigation are two young cops, Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, partners in uniform and both former boxers. But the deeper they get in the case, the greater their obsession with the Dahlia becomes. As the two men go rogue and hunt for the killer, they are drawn into the hellish underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, into the victim’s twisted past, and into the extremes of their own desires—a land of demons and madness.

Inspired by America’s most infamous unsolved murder, James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia is a classic work of crime fiction that will haunt its readers long after the last page.
© Marion Ettlinger
JAMES ELLROY was born in Los Angeles. He is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's a Rover, and the L.A. Quartet novels: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. He lives in Colorado. View titles by James Ellroy

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The first novel in The L.A. Quartet. The Black Dahlia is the haunting and harrowing book that put James Ellroy on the map as one of the most electrifying writers on the scene.

On January 15, 1947, the brutally mutilated body of Elizabeth Short is found in a vacant lot. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia, becoming the center of a media frenzy and cultural fixation.

Caught up in the investigation are two young cops, Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, partners in uniform and both former boxers. But the deeper they get in the case, the greater their obsession with the Dahlia becomes. As the two men go rogue and hunt for the killer, they are drawn into the hellish underbelly of 1940s Hollywood, into the victim’s twisted past, and into the extremes of their own desires—a land of demons and madness.

Inspired by America’s most infamous unsolved murder, James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia is a classic work of crime fiction that will haunt its readers long after the last page.

Author

© Marion Ettlinger
JAMES ELLROY was born in Los Angeles. He is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's a Rover, and the L.A. Quartet novels: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz. He lives in Colorado. View titles by James Ellroy

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