
The Black Dahlia
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Hoye
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By:
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James Ellroy
About this listen
In this fictionalized treatment of a real case, Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard, both LA cops obsessed with the Black Dahlia, journey through the seamy underside of Hollywood to the core of the dead girl's twisted life.
©1987 James Ellroy (P)2006 Random House, Inc.Critic reviews
"Passionate, violent, frustrating...imaginative and bizarre." (Los Angeles Times)
"Ellroy's powerful rendering of the long-reaching effects of murder gives the case new meaning." (Library Journal)
"Building like a symphony, this is a wonderful, complicated but accessible tale of ambition, insanity, passion, and deceit, with the perfect setting of booming, postwar Los Angeles." (Publishers Weekly)
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From the author of the acclaimed Burke private-eye series comes an ambitious and chilling novel that shows us not only what evil is, but where it comes from. For Shella is nothing less than a tour of evil’s spawning ground, conducted by one of its natural predators.He is called “Ghost” because he is so nondescript as to be invisible and because he slays with such reflexive ease that he might be one of the dead.
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Vachss best character
- By Shawn on 04-25-12
By: Andrew Vachss
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Suicide Hill
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In disgrace after a badly handled arrest in New Orleans, Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins is assigned as a liaison officer to an FBI investigation of a series of diabolical and clever bank robberies. Three men have done their homework: they choose bank managers who are having affairs, kidnap their girlfriends, and force the managers to open the banks early.
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Try this title for a change of pace
- By Robert on 04-19-16
By: James Ellroy
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Hollywood & Crime: Black Dahlia
- By: Jon Ponder, Rebecca Reynolds
- Narrated by: Tracy Pattin, Stephen Lang
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Hollywood & Crime is a groundbreaking true crime series about the most infamous murders in Tinseltown history. In our 26-episode series opener "The Black Dahlia Serial Killers", host Tracy Pattin investigates the sensational unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short. Known as the Black Dahlia, Short was a star-struck young woman whose body was found completely severed at the waist in January 1947. Many remember her tragic story, yet few know that more than a dozen other women died in similar circumstances around that same time.
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Love Wondery Podcasts
- By Cindi Cee on 10-16-20
By: Jon Ponder, and others
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Miami Blues
- Hoke Moseley, Book 1
- By: Charles Willeford
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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After a brutal day investigating a quadruple homicide, Detective Hoke Moseley settles into his room at the un-illustrious Eldorado Hotel and nurses a glass of brandy. With his guard down, he doesn't think twice when he hears a knock on the door. The next day, he finds himself in the hospital, badly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He thinks back over 10 years of cases, wondering who would want to beat him into unconsciousness, steal his gun and badge, and most importantly, make off with his prized dentures.
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Proof it can be done!
- By LadySpeaker on 10-07-15
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My Dark Places
- A True Crime Autobiography
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mother--and himself.
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Haughting. I did cry. A good cry.
- By Nerda Trusty on 09-12-19
By: James Ellroy
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Double Indemnity
- By: James M. Cain
- Narrated by: James Naughton
- Length: 3 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Tautly narrated and excruciatingly suspenseful, Double Indemnity gives us an X-ray view of guilt, of duplicity, and of the kind of obsessive, loveless love that devastates everything it touches. First published in 1936, this novel reaffirmed James M. Cain as a virtuoso of the roman noir.
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Morals be gone
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 10-31-11
By: James M. Cain
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Clandestine
- Mysterious Press - HighBridge Audio Classics
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Fred Underhill is a young cop on the rise in Los Angeles in the early 1950s - a town blinded to its own grime by Hollywood glitter; a society nourished by newspaper lies that wants its heroes all-American and squeaky clean. A chance to lead on a possible serial killing is all it takes to fuel Underhill's reckless ambition - and it propels him into a dangerous alliance with certain mad and unstable elements of the law enforcement hierarchy. When the case implodes with disastrous consequences, it is Fred Underhill who takes the fall. His life is in ruins, his promising future suddenly a dream of the past.
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Early Proto-Ellroy
- By Darwin8u on 05-21-18
By: James Ellroy
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L.A. Noir
- The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City
- By: John Buntin
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Midcentury Los Angeles: A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America", a land of sunshine and orange groves, Midwestern values, and Hollywood stars, protected by the world's most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.
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A good (but a little corny) history of LA
- By Jimmy on 10-23-12
By: John Buntin
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Five Decembers
- By: James Kestrel
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. The trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn't know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor. Spanning the entirety of World War II, Five Decembers is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.
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Fantastic
- By Victor @ theAudiobookBlog dot com on 10-10-22
By: James Kestrel
What listeners say about The Black Dahlia
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Overall
- Jane
- 09-23-06
An oddly compelling story
Filled with spooky noir nuances, outrageous storylines and complex characters, this is a don't miss book. That's not to say that it doesn't have it's flaws. There are some plot points that make very little sense, and some of the story is downright gory. However, as a whole, it makes for great listening, full of old Hollywood lore and 40's detective lingo.
I purchased and downloaded this well before the film release, fully intending to have it listened to before I saw the movie. I'm actually glad that I didn't read the book before the movie, because while the movie stands on it's own as entertainment, it is nothing next to the book. It's lengthy and requires your full attention, but I think you will find it's worth it.
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16 people found this helpful
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- zmlode
- 11-08-15
Slow to get into, but still fantastic.
Brilliant performance. Thoroughly enjoyed the afterword. Loved the historic setting of Los Angeles in the forties. Some very good twist and turns. Highly recommend.
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- Randy Salinas
- 12-10-23
Not a good listen
The book was ruined by the audio. Not sure if it was the performance or it just being read aloud. Some things just made me hate the recording
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- Dogs Land
- 09-20-24
Good enough story and presentation.
The racial slurs were rampant, and I am no prude about language that pertains to the story. But this was way over the top. I understand it was about a different time, but some trimming is in order.
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- Floyd
- 04-05-18
Noir both spectacular and personal
I normally will read 2 or 3 books at a time. As soon as I started The Black Dahila, I hadn't picked up anything else. Set in post war Los Angeles, like the rest of the LA Quartet series, the story focuses on a particularly horrific murder and investigation surrounding it. Far from a garden variety procedural story, Black Dahila is a deep dive into the very personal trauma of all the characters impacted by the murder. From the victim, to the detectives detailed to the investigation (McEllroy focuses on two in particular) and to the women in those detectives' lives. Again, modern day readers may be jarred by the racism and sexism so casually prevalent in the story. I would argue that 21st century humans aren't any more evolved that our 1950s counterparts; we just dress up our flaws differently. McEllroy takes all the post war shine off America and takes into lives of deeply flawed and incredibly strong people, some of whom are evil and others who are fighting to find the rightness in their world. Again, great book!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Trooper T
- 03-11-14
The Black Dahlia will pull you in
What made the experience of listening to The Black Dahlia the most enjoyable?
The Narrator voice matched the story
What did you like best about this story?
Based on fact
What about Stephen Hoye’s performance did you like?
His voice added to the story
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
I dare you to watch Black Dahlia
Any additional comments?
As you read this book you will find yourself asking for more
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1 person found this helpful
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- Laurent F. Rains
- 03-12-24
Classic Noir
Loved this creepy love triangle so much. More even on my second listen. 1940s LA comes alive.
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Overall
- ken
- 03-14-07
Great Read
Ellroy immerses you in postwar L.A. His writing is as close as one can get to a time machine. And, yes, his writing is about the characters' reacting to the Dahlia murders: good fiction -- even good crime fiction -- is always about character.
If only L.A. Confidential and The Big Sleep were available in unabridged versions. Ellroy simply can't be abridged/
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3 people found this helpful
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- G. Swanson
- 06-15-23
Hooked for first 3/4, then it goes astray
the first 3/4 of the book was very engaging with great character development and story development. Then suddenly major characters vanish and other minor characters become overly complex and pivotal to the story. It felt like he wrote a book, and remembered a plot twist he forgot to include. So it was very disconnected to the story and felt crammed into the end.
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- Anthony L. Carey
- 01-02-21
Wow!
I haven't been able to stop listening to this book. Just when I thought it was over, it starts again. I felt like this story had 4 different endings, each played on the previous one. Great story and performance.
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