Overview

The grisly 1947 murder of aspiring starlet and nightclub habitue Elizabeth Short, known even before her death as the 'Black Dahlia,' has over the decades transmogrified from L.A.'s 'crime of the century' into an almost mythical symbol of unfathomable Hollywood Babylon/film noir glamour-cum-sordidness. It is somehow fitting that author John Gilmore should be the one to unravel the multilayered mystery of this archetypal Los Angeles slaying as it begins to take its place in the collective memory, somewhere next to Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper, a cautionary tale about the pretty girl who came to Hollywood to be a movie star and wound up in a dirt lot, hacked in two.

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9781878923318

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Delves deeply into one of Hollywood's most celebrated murder cases. --Publishers Weekly Gilmore has done extensive research into the Short case. . . . We will probably never know for sure who killed the Black Dahlia. Had Detective St. John had the opportunity to interview Arnold Smith, the outcome might have been different. --John Douglas, author, Mindhunter The most satisfying and disturbing conclusion to the Black Dahlia case. After reading Severed, I feel like I truly know Elizabeth Short and her killer. --David Lynch

Delves deeply into one of Hollywood's most celebrated murder cases. --Publishers Weekly The best book on the Black Dahlia in fact, the only reliable book. --Colin Wilson Gilmore has done extensive research into the Short case. . . . We will probably never know for sure who killed the Black Dahlia. Had Detective St. John had the opportunity to interview Arnold Smith, the outcome might have been different. --John Douglas, author, Mindhunter The most satisfying and disturbing conclusion to the Black Dahlia case. After reading Severed, I feel like I truly know Elizabeth Short and her killer. --David Lynch

Author Information

Described by the Sydney Morning Herald as ""the quintessential L.A. noir writer,"" John Gilmore was internationally acclaimed for his hard-boiled true crime books, Hollywood memoirs and biting, literary fiction. He was the author of Severed, Laid Bare, Cold-Blooded, Live Fast, Die Young, Fetish Blonde, Inside Marilyn Monroe, L.A. Despair and other works. He lived in Los Angeles.

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