The Black Dahlia cover art

The Black Dahlia

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Get this deal
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
More purchase options

The Black Dahlia

By: James Ellroy
Narrated by: Jeff Harding
Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £13.89

Buy Now for £13.89

A neo-noir crime novel from the legendary crime novelist James Ellroy.

Los Angeles, 15th January 1947: a beautiful young woman walked into the night and met her horrific destiny. Five days later, her tortured body was found drained of blood and cut in half. The newspapers called her 'The Black Dahlia'. Two cops are caught up in the investigation and embark on a hellish journey that takes them to the core of the dead girl's twisted life....

©1987 James Ellroy (P)2016 Isis Publishing Ltd Crime Crime Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Modern Detectives Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Mystery Police Procedural Emotionally Gripping
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most relevant
Elroy perfectly encapsulates the feeling of the Hammett and Chandler, but unlike them, it's a bit more long winded.

good modern take on Hard Boiled, Black Mask style

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I’ve read half of the LA quartet and most of the rest of his collection so I thought I’d try the Dahlia as I listen to the complete collection while commuting. The performance is great and Ellroy’s classic jaded detectives and femme fatales litter the late 40’s crime noir thriller. Knowing some of the characters and locations from later books it’s interesting to see Ellroy litter places and people we will come to know better over later books.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend.

Not Ellroy’s finest but a great performance

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
classic LA Noir, Elroy literary owns this genre (see what I did there!) Thisnisnsuper fast pace, great delivery and unlike almost every other crime thriller the clues are hard to come by, the hero gets things wrong, nothings the first place they look and very little time is spent time coding the era, just download and let this book go!

complex crime thriller

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The narrators voice has to match the tone and mood of the book for me to be able to enjoy an audio book and not find their voice/accent a distraction. Jeff Harding was a perfect narrator for this dark, moody LA based novel, an insight into so many types of pain and a story where every character is morally corrupt. It's a wonderful novel and Harding is great- but, that Scottish accent he attempts is nothing short of ridiculous. I don't know what he's basing it on, but it sounds like Mrs Doubtfire doing an impression of an Irish person at panto. Its absolutely dreadful. If only someone else had read those parts.

Great book, great narrator, but that Scottish accent!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
could've been so much better had the narrator not been so awful. Ruined it for me. Accents were terrible.

had this in my wishlist. Awful narration ruined it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews