Is The Black Dahlia based on a true story?

Yes. The novel is built around the real, still-unsolved 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles. James Ellroy weaves the historical case together with invented detectives and a wealthy fictional family, and gives the story a solution to a crime that has never actually been solved.

What order should I read James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet in?

In publication order: The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), and White Jazz (1992). The four novels share a 1940s-50s Los Angeles setting and some recurring characters, but each tells its own self-contained case.

The Black Dahlia

Crime Noir

Pages: 371
Published: 1987
Language: English

Synopsis

In 1947 Los Angeles, LAPD detectives Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard are drawn into a murder investigation that becomes an obsession: the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short, dubbed "the Black Dahlia" by the press. As the case spirals through corruption, betrayal, and old grudges, both men find their lives irrevocably changed.