Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury

The LAPD officers were responding to a call of a drunk man down in Leimert Park. The policemen discovered something far more ghastly on January 15th, 1947, the bisected remains of a young woman named Elizabeth Short. Within days of the discovery, the young woman would be forever immortalized as “The Black Dahlia”. Elizabeth Short was from Medford, Massachusetts, but the promise of a respite from the cruel winters of the Northeast, along with the potential for a departure from normal life, brought her out West. Her brief time in California saw her living an itinerant lifestyle, as Elizabeth often relied on the kindness of strangers and friends for food and shelter. Elizabeth would also find a fair amount of gentlemen who took a shine to her, yet she never truly settled down. Her life would possess as many mysteries as her tragic demise, many of which are still being questioned 80 years onward.

Black Dahlia is a comprehensive and superb deconstruction of the myths surrounding a legendary cold case. Author William J Mann(“Tinseltown”) has thoroughly explored every investigative avenue in examining the suspects and leads revolving around the murder of Elizabeth Short and has put forth a definitive study of the case.