The Black Dahlia

The Black Dahlia (1987) is a crime fiction 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 horrifically mutilated and discarded in an empty residential lot. The investigation ultimately led to a broad police corruption scandal. While rooted in the facts of the Short murder and featuring many real-life people, places and events, Ellroy's novel blends facts and fiction, most notably in providing a solution to the crime when in reality it has never been solved. James Ellroy dedicated The Black Dahlia, "To Geneva Hilliker Ellroy 1915-1958 Mother: Twenty-nine Years Later, This Valediction in Blood." The epigraph for The Black Dahlia is "Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, My first lost keeper, to love and look at later. -Anne Sexton." This book is considered the one that gained Ellroy critical attention as a serious writer of literature, expanding his renown beyond the crime novels of his early career. 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. Synopsis In 1946, the Los Angeles Police Department arranges a boxing match between patrolmen Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert and Lee Blanchard as a publicity stunt to restore the department's public image after multiple corruption and brutality scandals. The fight is promoted as "Fire versus Ice", reflecting their contrasting boxing styles and personalities. Bucky is cautious and reserved, and racked with guilt over his wartime record, having betrayed two Japanese-American friends (resulting in their internment) and participated in the violent suppression of the Zoot Suit Riots. By contrast, Lee is outgoing and jovial, and already famous for catching the notorious bank robber Bobby De Witt. Lee is openly cohabiting with Kay Lake, De Witt's girlfriend, in violation of LAPD policy. Bucky and Lee are promoted to plainclothes jobs in the Warrants Division and are subsequently partnered together. Bucky quickly forms a close bond with Lee and Kay, seeing them as a surrogate family.