Black Ellroy is a very dark color!

In Los Angeles the postwar Betty Short aka the Black Dahlia, love touch the tassel of sailors she meets in the shady bars. Yet this is without luck. One morning in January, it is found drained of blood in a vacant lot. His body, whiter than ever, is cut in half and the sadist it is taken twice to remove her ovaries. The inspector and his sidekick Bleitcher Blanchard, former heavyweight boxers recently promoted cops are investigating. They advance to instinct. Their logical path, besides the many characters and witnesses, is a little hard to follow. Sometimes lack of explanation in the text, but that is not important. Before being a polard, The Black Dahlia is primarily a novel of atmosphere, a sort of Dick Tracy and sadistic fantasy.

Like all Ellroy novels, this book is the product of two obsessions, women and perversion. By exploring the outskirts of madness, Ellroy seeks an explanation unsolved murder of his (real) mother. His fascination with blackness gives a very particular representation of Los Angeles. The city, under his prism, becomes another Gotham City where the wicked, crazy, the vain are the rule. The real kind are meanwhile, exceptional.

I can not say that the suspense is unbearable, but the psychology of crime is very particular and for that alone, the book is worth the trip.