The Black Dahlia
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.
A reserved, guilt-ridden LAPD detective and former boxer whose growing obsession with the murder pulls him into corruption and moral compromise.
The real-life murder victim whose horrific 1947 killing, and the mystery of who she really was, drives the entire investigation.
Bucky's charismatic partner, celebrated for capturing a bank robber, who is hiding secrets about his own criminal past and his bond with Kay Lake.
A sharp, independent woman living platonically with Lee Blanchard after her abusive ex-boyfriend was imprisoned; she is drawn into a love triangle with both detectives.
A spoiled, sexually forward socialite who bears an eerie resemblance to Elizabeth Short and pulls Bucky into her wealthy family's secrets.
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.
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.