BOOK (1987)

The Black Dahlia

by James Ellroy (Mysterious Press)

James Ellroy calls himself the 'Demon Dog' of crime fiction and who's to argue. The sparkling familiarity with the seedier sides of life in his work can only come from a man who has his nose in the gutter, and his fascination with crime, particularly the Los Angeles variety, can only have been stoked by a personal attachment to the city and its history.

Ellroy (right) grew up in the LA suburbs - where his mother was murdered when he was just 10. It was a killing that went unsolved - and to which he would turn his hand later in the disturbingly frank confessional My Dark Places.

But by that stage in his life Ellroy had already become obsessed with one of LA's most famous unsolved crimes, the brutal butchering in 1947 of the beautiful Elizabeth Short - the woman the tabloid press dubbed the Black Dahlia.

There were similarities between the two murders and Ellroy forges the link in permanency by dedicating this work thus: 'Mother: Twenty-nine Years Later, This Valediction in Blood'. Talk about setting a tone. By the time he wrote the book, Ellroy had already established himself - and, more important, his style - as the most exciting thing in crime fiction.