It really held me--and my wife, who usually doesn't like
hard-boiled. Must
say I can't understand why people say he takes so long to
read, however.
You just push everything aside and read on! The lawn, the
long-haired dog,
the carpet with the dog's long hairs--let 'em wait!
He really does a nice balancing act, between character
interest and the
driving plot. While I thought there was too much
late-plot
complication/revelation, I couldn't find any glaring
improbabilities.
Maybe it was a case of a classic-style mystery ending (ie,
the # of
separate revelations) in a subgenre (hb or noir) where the
unraveling is
usually more in terms of the justice done, than the culprit
fingered.
Dahlia had both, believeably driven by a detective's
obsessions.
I don't have references on Ellroy or his sources. Folks in
their 60s tell
me they remember a case...or are they simply remembering the
A. Ladd
movie, The Blue Dahlia (1946)? Was there a Dahlia case?
Similar? Anyone
charged and convicted?
Bill Hagen
<billha@ionet.net>
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