
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.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Compelling Listen!
- By Nikki on 11-21-15
By: Steve Hodel
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The Enchanters
- A Novel
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 19 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles, August 4, 1962. The city broils through a midsummer heat wave. Marilyn Monroe ODs. A B-movie starlet is kidnapped. The overhyped LAPD overreacts. Chief Bill Parker’s looking for some getback. The Monroe deal looks like a moneymaker. He calls in Freddy Otash. The freewheeling Freddy O: tainted ex-cop, defrocked private eye, dope fiend, and freelance extortionist. A man who lives by the maxim “Opportunity is love.” Freddy gets to work. He dimly perceives Marilyn Monroe’s death and the kidnapped starlet to be a poisonous riddle that only he has the guts and the brains to untangle
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Ellroy is tired
- By butwhatdoIknow on 11-29-23
By: James Ellroy
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Widespread Panic
- A Novel
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in '50s LA. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp - and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine. Confidential presaged the idiot internet - and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank.
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Great for those familiar with Ellroy
- By Jonathon Pledger on 07-02-21
By: James Ellroy
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Black Dahlia, Red Rose
- The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder
- By: Piu Eatwell
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The gruesome murder of hopeful starlet Elizabeth Short, in the noir-tinged Los Angeles of 1947, has a permanent place in American lore as one of the most inscrutable of true-crime mysteries. Now, Piu Eatwell - relentless legal sleuth and atmospheric stylist - cracks the case after 70 years. With recently unredacted FBI files, newly released sections of the LAPD files, and explosive new interviews, Eatwell has unprecedented access to primary evidence and a persuasive culprit.
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Slightly disappointing
- By Buretto on 10-26-17
By: Piu Eatwell
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Destination: Morgue!
- L.A. Tales
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: Craig Wasson
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Dig. The Demon Dog gets down with a new book of scenes from America’s capital of kink: Los Angeles. Fourteen pieces, some fiction, some nonfiction, all true enough to be admissible as state’s evidence, and half of it in print for the first time. And every one of them bearing the James Ellroy brand of mayhem, machismo, and hollow-nose prose.
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Noir in the 21st century
- By Michael on 12-31-23
By: James Ellroy
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The Thin Man
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The Thin Man introduces Nick and Nora Charles, New York's coolest crime-solving couple. Nick retired from detecting after his wife inherited a tidy sum, but six years later a pretty blonde spies him at a speakeasy and asks for his help finding her father, an eccentric inventor who was once Nick's client. Nick can no more resist the case than a morning cocktail or a good fight, and soon he and Nora are caught in a complicated web of confused identities.
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RECORDING IS DEFECTIVE! MISSING SEVEN CHAPTERS!
- By David on 01-08-13
By: Dashiell Hammett
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Love Me Fierce in Danger
- The Life of James Ellroy
- By: Dr Steven Powell
- Narrated by: Jeff Harding
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of James Ellroy, one of the most provocative and singular figures in American literature. The so-called “Demon Dog of Crime Fiction,” Ellroy enjoys a celebrity status and notoriety that few authors can match. However, traumas from the past have shadowed his literary success. Informed by interviews with friends, family, peers, and literary and Hollywood collaborators, as well as extensive conversations with Ellroy himself, Love Me Fierce in Danger pulls back the curtain on an enigmatic figure who has courted acclaim and controversy with equal zealotry.
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The journey of James Ellroy
- By Jason Carter on 10-05-23
By: Dr Steven Powell
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The Maltese Falcon
- The Maltese Falcon
- By: Dashiell Hammett
- Narrated by: Tom Wilkinson, Jane Lapotaire, Peter Vaughan, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 55 mins
- Original Recording
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It's San Francisco, 1928, and Sam Spade is a wisecracking, womanising Private Investigator. Missing husbands and unfaithful wives are his usual stock-in-trade, but when the beautifully distressed Miss Wonderley calls he gets involved in a dangerous caper most people would run a mile from. Miss Wonderley asks Sam's partner, Miles Archer, to shadow Floyd Thursby, whom she maintains has kidnapped her sister. But then Archer is shot dead, and Miss Wonderley's story turns out to be a lie.
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A fun adaptation of a fun book
- By Peter Giordano on 04-07-20
By: Dashiell Hammett
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Because the Night
- By: James Ellroy
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Three citizens are butchered during a liquor store holdup. An unstable veteran cop vanishes without a trace. Nothing connects these events except for a nagging hunch in the back of Detective Sergeant Lloyd Hopkins' brain--a sinister foreboding that will lead him through the sin-and-sleaze playground of nighttime L.A. on the trail of a psycho psychiatrist with a talent for terror and mind-control. His gore-soaked journey through Hell will plunge this determined manhunter into the dark heart of madness--and beyond.
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A rough draft for better Noir that will come
- By Darwin8u on 08-18-18
By: James Ellroy
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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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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
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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