The Black Dahlia

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Summary: Black Dahlia Put me in a time warp.
Review: While reading "Black Dahlia" I was transported to post-war LA. Ellory is a perfect master of stage and mood setting and makes perfect use of period language to make you believe that the novel was written 50 years ago. Be warned though, I found the ending leaving a little bit more to be desired and parts of the plot were a wee bit predictable.

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Summary: Mr J. Ellroy can do no wrong
Review: James Ellroy is the best. He writes then characters come alive. Intricate intwined plots but easily followed. Dont really like his earlier work apart from silent terror. Just believable. Extreme, scary stuff, once you hve read Big Nowhere bet you cant sleep without the light on !

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Summary: interestingly written, but unbelieveable
Review: i've never read james ellroy but i was facing a 12-hour air trip and needed to keep occupied. i really admire ellroy's writing style. it is the one thing that kept me reading after i gave up on the "probability" of the plot. i quit believing in it early on, and by the end with the crazies sawing and hacking, i was laughing out loud. i simply could not buy it. the two main characters are really enigmas, bleichart more so than blanchard. lee is simply a typically corrupt person, would be whether he were in high tech stockbrokering or railroad engineering. he's got his eye on the main chance and more particularly on himself. so nothing he did in the book surprised me. however, bleichart was a sympathetic character until close to the end. very complex. very human. but also corrupt. and i resented that. i guess i wanted him to be more good than bad. hope springs eternal. but all in all i liked him as a person, even though he was so less than perfect. the ending of the book was NICE. dear me! after all that blood and gore...unbelieveable. and kay the schoolteacher? didn't buy that either. the hooker with a heart of gold, yes. the heart-is-pure schoolteacher? no. i loved the black dahlia imitator. those lesbian bars were described soooo well. and her character was the only one i could believe was true to form, as though she wrote herself. whereas ellroy was always writing the characters of the others, forcing them occasionally. didn't like the woman much, but she was real. the depiction of the entire lapd as corrupt is probably more true than not, and sad. but the depiction is done with a cold-bloodedness that i agree with previous reviewers, his mother's unsolved murder must really color his perception of policeman. so i go back to the two main characters again. are they what they are because of ellroy's personal history, or because he imagines them to be that way given the times ('40s) and the place. i would not recommend this book to most of the people i know. not because i don't think they should read it, but because of what they might think of me for having read it and suggested it as a book worth their time. i picked it up mostly because i am a child of the forties, i love film noir, and i love black books about dark times. but this one was a bit more than i expected. i doubt that i will read other ellroy books.

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Summary: Very very good
Review: Everything is fine with this great novel except the ancient editing. If this book could be reprinted and re-edited in a more modern form, not just jammed all the long paragraphs together in heavy blocks for easier reading, then it's not just very very good, it'll be PERFECT! And we also could find out tht Ellroy's writings in this book was quite normal, and then the great writer has found himself an unique and outstandging style in writing that evolved into the weird but more interesting form in his BIG NOWHERE and L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. I think Mr. James Ellroy should get some literary awards if Faulkner could have some, since what he wrote is the real stuff of modern days.

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Summary: Brilliant take on the most famous & bizarre murder ever!
Review: "The Black Dahlia" is a must-read. Like all of Ellroy's later novels, this one is written in that enjoyable, terse, staccato-like prose, though it differs in that it is remarkably easy to follow. His fascination with this case (see "My Dark Places") is understandable and his version of what happened is unforgettably chilling. This one can't be missed. Lee and Bucky are another pair of great characters -- just two more characters to add to a really, really long list. Read this one!

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Summary: Good Book. Pacing great and suspenseful until last 50 pages
Review: Great book. The writing in the beginning really sucked me in. Great story. The pacing was very effective until the last 50 - 60 pages. One too many plot twists near the end of the book, for my tastes. Also, I had a hard time biting into the actual killer.

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Summary: Ross MacDonald with a dose of H. P. Lovecraft
Review: What makes The Black Dahlia powerful is the sense of an world relentlessly dissolving into chaos and horror in spite of the main character's desperate efforts to bring about order and justice. The book isn't about good versus evil; it's about the protagonist's struggle to believe that good really exists. It's a dark, dark book-Ross MacDonald with a dose of H. P. Lovecraft. A compulsive read, some of the images haunt you long after you put it down.

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Summary: Tough, hard-boiled, noir, ... excellent
Review: Ellroy's noirish story of two cops and their search for the killer of the Black Dahlia is a superb fictionalized account of a real life unsolved mystery. The story has an unsettling documentary feel about it and what emerges is an oftentimes brutal and disturbing portrait of tough, obsessive cops and their no holes barred approach to detective work. Ellroy's debt to Ross MacDonald is very apparent in the plot resolution, although you will not find any characters that approach the nobility of Lew Archer, Philip Marlowe or even Harry Bosch. Ellroy's characters tend to fall prey to their own destructive obsessions. This is a great read, and I encourage fans of Jim Thompson, Chandler, Macdonald & Michael Connelly to read this book.

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Summary: Ellroy's gut-renching novel will leave you breathless.
Review: Simply the best novel I've read in years. The story, surrounding the actual Black Dahlia murder which shocked 1940's L.A. crackles with the feeling of real life. Ellroy's descriptive narrative puts you in the tumultuous times of the deceptively peaceful post-war period. Bucky Bleichart and Lee Blanchard are two characters who make you really care and the story keeps you guessing until the very end. Truly novel noir. If you miss this one, you'll be kicking yourself for the rest of your life.

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Summary: Unforgettable human evil pervades its pages.
Review: This is not a great book. The writing is so-so. Characters are poorly drawn. There isn't really a sympathetic or appealing characterin sight. But after many pictures of ugly Americans involved in thestory, I cannot shake the vivid diary accounting of the torture of the victim. I wish I could. It brings you too closely into the mind of a crazy and sick killer. Horrible.