by James Ellroy
First published 2006
January 15, 1947. A mutilated corpse turns up in a vacant Los Angeles lot. The victim becomes known as the Black Dahlia, sparking California's most intensive police hunt. Bucky Bleichert works Warrants Squad alongside his partner Lee Blanchard. The two men share a friendship, a rivalry, and feelings for the same woman. The Dahlia case consumes them both. They dig into her twisted past, chasing leads through postwar Hollywood's criminal underworld. Each man wants to crack the case, to understand the victim, to own some piece of her story. Their investigation pulls them deeper into the dead woman's secrets and further from their own sanity. The search becomes personal. It becomes dangerous. The case threatens to destroy everything they thought they knew about justice, about friendship, and about themselves.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, obsession, unreliable-narrator
Setting: California, Los Angeles
Period: 1947
348 pages · Paperback · Mysterious Press
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, murder