The Black Dahlia

Rating:
Summary: Paint it black
Review: When I bought this book, my first on Ellroy's Quartet, I thought it will be another silly but yet interesting view on the Dahlia's case, but now I'm glad I bought it; it's an amazing book, very well written by the master of noir, Mr James Ellroy. Since The Black Dhalia, Ellroy has won a place in my shelf next to the greats of hard-boiled: Chandler, Cain, Hammet and Spillane. It's really dark, raw if you like to call it, and it won't let you go till the end. Mr Ellroy, as long you keep writing books as good as this, I ll buy your books

Rating:
Summary: A Great Spin On A Real Life Unsolved Mystery
Review: James Ellroy is a great writer. All of his books are classic, and The Black Dahlia is no exception. Mr. Ellroy turns his childhood obsession with the brutal murder of Elizabeth Short into a great, film noir-ish book. By recreating the atmosphere and vernacular of Post-WW2 Los Angeles, he makes the book's plot and characters as real as the title subject was. It is impossible to put down. A great book.

Rating:
Summary: A roller-coaster ride
Review: There are parts of this book where, when reading it, you realize that your breaths have become interspersed and your palms are sweating. Imagery ranges from chrome-tinted nostalgia to eye-watering repulsiveness. Overall the exposition was very long and some characters become disagreeable. Nonetheless a very engrossing novel and with a shocking ending.

Rating:
Summary: The best book of 1999....for me, at least
Review: This is the absolute best book Ive read this year since Along Came A Spider by James Patterson. I must confess, I bought this book and loathed it for I was bored out of my mind. I sold it to a used shop only to learn it was part of the LA Quartet. I then had to buy it back, but at full price because someone had purchased my old copy. Oh well. I don't regret the price. This book has it all-murder, mystery, sex, romance, soul searchin'-It is great....Don't Miss OUT!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Great, but don't read about the real 'Black Dahlia' before
Review: I stumbled across the 'Black Dahlia' case while looking into LA Noir titles, and read the real story. I bought Ellroy's book, and enjoyed it immensly, however I was constantly comparing his investigation with some of the known facts from the case. There's one point (I won't ruin it by giving it away here) that came out much later about Elizabeth Short that sort of invalidates all of Ellroy's investigation, so I probably didn't enjoy it as much as I would had I not read up on the actual case. Still I would highly recommend it as a crime novel, and it ranks right up there with Chandler and Hammet, only with a little bit of hindsight.

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Summary: An original and compelling mix of fact and fiction.
Review: This is the 2nd of 3 James Elroy books that I have read and while it's better than My Dark Places it's not quite as good as American Tabloid ( which also mixes real life incidents with fiction.) Still, after a slow start (by that I mean it doesn't get going until about 90 pages in) the Black Dahlia gathers pace and delivers on its promising premise. A disturbing, emotive thriller with plenty of unpredictable, but believable twists. A real page- turner once it gets going. It also has great film potential.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but overplotted
Review: I really enjoyed the first part of the book, but the plot twists and turns eventually became too implausible. Also, while I can believe that L.A. cops were extremely corrupt, it's hard to believe they could be so casual about murdering so many people.

Rating:
Summary: Dazzling, disturbing... Ellroy's best.
Review: In his later work (some of the recent GQ pieces, for example) Ellroy has adopted a percussive, one-line-paragraph style that seems almost to be making fun of the hep-cat lingo that used to be his trademark. That's partly why The Black Dahlia remains my favorite among his books. The writing is smooth, fluid, and melodic, like a dark jazz composition with smoky woodwinds and a subdued pulsing backbeat. The story is compelling, the observations hard and uncompromising, and the characters are fully three-dimensional. This is the one that turned me on to the Demon Dog, and I keep looking for something he's written since White Jazz that comes close to this level of writing.

Rating:
Summary: Best Crime Novel Ever
Review: What else can I say? Buy it. It intrigues and disturbs

Rating:
Summary: THE American Novel...
Review: Just like "a reader from England" below I decided to have a crack at some Ellroy after loving LA Confidential. The worst part about it is that I almost gave up after about 70 pages... After 383 I put down one of the great pieces of modern fiction I've ever read... It's dark, disturbing, unputdownable, filled with the most wonderful, vivid characters in the genre since Raymond Chandler and it's just a question of time before Hollywood makes a terrible movie adaptation... Maybe with that nice young Brad Pitt...