The Black Dahlia (1987) is a
neo-noir crime novel by American author
James Ellroy, taking inspiration from the true story of the murder of
Elizabeth Short. It is widely considered to be the book that elevated Ellroy out of typical
genre fiction status, and with which he started to garner critical attention as a serious writer of
literature .
The Black Dahlia is the first book in Ellroy's
L.A. Quartet, a cycle of novels set in 1940s and 1950s
Los Angeles, which is portrayed as a hotbed of
political corruption and depravity. The Quartet continues with
The Big Nowhere,
L.A. Confidential, and
White Jazz. James Ellroy dedicated
The Black Dahlia, "To Geneva Hilliker Ellroy 1915–1958
Mother: Twenty-nine Years Later, This Valediction in Blood." The
epigraph for
The Black Dahlia is "Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator, My first lost keeper, to love and look at later. —
Anne Sexton."