Its subject is the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles, California, which received wide attention because her corpse was horrifically mutilated and discarded in an empty residential lot.

This book is considered the one that gained Ellroy critical attention as a serious writer of literature, expanding his renown beyond the crime novels of his early career.

Bucky is cautious and reserved, racked with guilt over his betrayal of two Japanese-American friends (resulting in their wartime internment) and involvement in violently suppressing of the Zoot Suit Riots.

The killing, which the press dub "Black Dahlia", reminds Lee of the unsolved disappearance of his younger sister Laurie, prompting him to volunteer himself and Bucky for the investigation.

Another detective, the thuggish Fritz Vogel, is in cahoots with Assistant DA Ellis Loew, who hopes to use the case to launch his political career.

Bucky is initially resentful of his and Lee's involvement in the case, but gradually becomes obsessed with Short as he learns about her chaotic and unhappy life.

One line of enquiry leads Bucky to Madeleine Sprague, a spoiled socialite who closely resembles Short and was involved in a lesbian relationship with her.

Bucky meets the rest of Madeleine's family, consisting of her tyrannical father Emmett, an amoral property developer; her sickly mother Ramona; and her sister Martha, an aspiring artist.

Bucky follows and stumbles across the body of De Witt, apparently murdered along with Mexican drug trafficker Felix Chasco by corrupt Rurales hired by Lee.

There, he learns from a San Diego private investigator that Lee was murdered by a Mexican woman, probably Chasco's lover avenging his death.

During the pageant to celebrate the removal of the last four letters of the "Hollywoodland" sign, a nearby shack is discovered to contain a mattress covered in dried blood.

Moreover, Emmett reveals that Tilden, the son of an anatomist, has always been obsessed with dead bodies and habitually exhumes corpses in order to collect their organs.

Desperate to get his attention, she reveals to Bucky that she, in disguise as a Mexican woman, was the one who murdered Lee, in order to retrieve the $100,000 that he extorted from her father.

The novel ends with Bucky flying out to join Kay, and on the plane, he prays for Short's spirit to watch over him in his new home – Boston, her birthplace.

Starring Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart, it was a critical and commercial failure, with the consensus being that it had been poorly made and acted.

[3] The latter fault may have been caused by De Palma's drastic editing of the finished product, which initially ran for three hours and he eventually cut down to two.

In 2013, Matz and David Fincher adapted James Ellroy's novel into a comic called Le Dahlia noir [fr], with Miles Hyman as the illustrator.