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The Black Dahlia

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The Black Dahlia

By: James Ellroy
Narrated by: Jeff Harding
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About this listen

A neo-noir crime novel from the legendary crime novelist James Ellroy.

Los Angeles, 15th January 1947: a beautiful young woman walked into the night and met her horrific destiny. Five days later, her tortured body was found drained of blood and cut in half. The newspapers called her 'The Black Dahlia'. Two cops are caught up in the investigation and embark on a hellish journey that takes them to the core of the dead girl's twisted life....

©1987 James Ellroy (P)2016 Isis Publishing Ltd Crime Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Modern Detectives Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Mystery Police Procedural Emotionally Gripping
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Elroy perfectly encapsulates the feeling of the Hammett and Chandler, but unlike them, it's a bit more long winded.

good modern take on Hard Boiled, Black Mask style

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I’ve read half of the LA quartet and most of the rest of his collection so I thought I’d try the Dahlia as I listen to the complete collection while commuting. The performance is great and Ellroy’s classic jaded detectives and femme fatales litter the late 40’s crime noir thriller. Knowing some of the characters and locations from later books it’s interesting to see Ellroy litter places and people we will come to know better over later books.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend.

Not Ellroy’s finest but a great performance

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very graphic in places, not for the faint hearted but you have to expect this with a novel based on a real life murder, the real life black dahlia murder is well worth checking out it took me down a whole new bizarre rabbit hole, this book has a very fitting no nonsense delivery almost reads like a report, no flowery prose, just fact after fact, very little digression, the plot doesn't so much lead you along but grabs you by the scruff of your neck and drags you along, this style may not appeal to everyone but, it works brilliantly in this story, I found it totally engrossing and would definitely recommend it, the narrator does an amazing job breathing life into this story which could've been read as a flat police report and utterly ruined, I very much enjoyed this book

gritty and uncompromising

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Enjoyed the story more than the performance, plenty of twists and turns but the performance lacked a little drama to truly entertain.

Enjoyable none the less.

Great story

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This is a grim and convoluted tale you have to concentrate on at all times. Jeff Harding is great with the American male voices but his "Scottish" accent wanders all around that country and crosses the Irish Sea quite a bit too. Also, his female voices rankled with me. A sort of highly exaggerated camp tone. Women really don't talk like that!

Dark stuff.

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