Kadomi reviewed Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
Review of 'Black Dahlia' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
One of my all-time favorite video games is L.A. Noire, a look at corruption in the police force in post-WWII California. If you enjoy hardboiled detective stories, I cannot recommend this game enough. A part of the game deals with a young homicide detective trying to find the Black Dahlia killer, and that's how this book ended up on my reading list.
The Black Dahlia is a real murder case from 1947, and they never found the killer. It was particularly gruesome, the body chopped in half and mutilated. In this novel, we meet a pair of detectives. Our first person narrator is Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert, a former boxer who gets roped into fighting another cop, Lee Blanchard, to get a position as his partner as a Warrant detective. Bucky also meets Lee's girlfriend Kay, which creates an awkward love triangle. All could be well, but then the body of …
One of my all-time favorite video games is L.A. Noire, a look at corruption in the police force in post-WWII California. If you enjoy hardboiled detective stories, I cannot recommend this game enough. A part of the game deals with a young homicide detective trying to find the Black Dahlia killer, and that's how this book ended up on my reading list.
The Black Dahlia is a real murder case from 1947, and they never found the killer. It was particularly gruesome, the body chopped in half and mutilated. In this novel, we meet a pair of detectives. Our first person narrator is Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert, a former boxer who gets roped into fighting another cop, Lee Blanchard, to get a position as his partner as a Warrant detective. Bucky also meets Lee's girlfriend Kay, which creates an awkward love triangle. All could be well, but then the body of the Black Dahlia is discovered, and every cop in L.A. is tasked to find her.
Both Bucky and Lee get obsessed over this case, and it turns out to be both men's downfall.
It starts very slowly, and I couldn't have cared less about the boxing stuff, but about halfway through, I found it impossible to put this book down. It's at times an uncomfortable read, as it's world full of sexism, violence against women, exploitation and pornography. There is no black and white in this world, everything's grey, murky, corrupt. Especially the last part twists and turns and I never saw some developments coming.
I am greatly looking forward to reading the rest of Ellroy's L.A. Quartet now.
4 to 4.5 stars for me.