TONS of typos, chronological mistakes

This was very good. Slightly slow at times.

As much as I love Los Angeles stories and true crime tales, I’ve long avoided reading about the murder of Elizabeth Short. I did read James Ellroy’s fictional take and watch I Am The Night but both of those were kind of pop pulpy examinations with little basis in reality geared for entertainment. The main reason I’ve avoided it is I don’t find the murder and brutality of white women as fascinating as others, particularly white men, seem to do. I know there are many psychological nuances to why people kill but in situations such as this, it often comes down to garden variety misogyny. I don’t find misogyny fascinating; I find it gross.

But this one came recommended because it was a level-headed, detailed account of what happened during the investigation with a solid hypothesis into who the actual killer was. So I gave it a shot…and it lived up to its billing. It helps that Piu Eatwel isn’t approaching this as many Angeleno-based writers do: from a perspective of sensationalism and conjecture (looking at you, Steve Hodel). Instead, she focuses her book on two men: Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen. The former was a drifter with alleged psychosexual tendencies. The latter a gangster and a pimp with ties to the LAPD.

Eatwel makes an interesting case for the guilt of the two, as well as the inexplicable cover up of the scandal-ridden LAPD (what else is new?). Granted, a lot of what she suggests as evidence is circumstantial. But the circumstances are compelling enough to warrant a closer look. Since the LAPD refuses to release the case file on Elizabeth Short’s murder, she’s left with only scraps of evidence but she’s able to turn them into a compelling narrative. I’m not sure these two men did it but it’s as good of a guess as any.

My only real complaint is Eatwel relies too much on footnotes. I’d guess 80% of them were redundant and unnecessary. But otherwise, she presents a most interesting case. Even if you don’t agree with her hypothesis, you can at least appreciate it for a fully realized accounting of the Short investigation. The crime lingers on too long in the American consciousness for many of the wrong reasons. Credit to Eatwel for focusing on the right ones.

I've finally been able to get through all of American Horror Story: Murder House after trying and failing so many times because the show felt too over the top for me in the past. In the proper frame of mind, I really enjoyed it. One aspect of the show that I did not like, however, was Mena Suvari showing up as the Black Dahlia for a bit of alternate history in the murder house. It felt a little exploitative to me until I realized that although I had seen the crime scene photos and knew how she was discovered and that her case went unsolved, I didn't know enough about it to say with certainty that she didn't die at the hands of an illegal abortionist in a SoCal mansion.

So, I decided to educate myself on the real story of what may have happened to Elizabeth Short. Indeed, the doctor in the mansion does show up; however, the real life case against him is pretty weak.

At the heart of Black Dahlia, Red Rose instead is a very convincing argument that the case should have been solved, but the accused killers had connections to and knowledge of ill-doings in the LAPD. As a result, evidence that would have supported the strong circumstantial case was "lost," records were suppressed, and the likely involved parties were set free. The circumstantial case presented here is less an Arthur Leigh Allen/Zodiac series of coincidences, and more like the main suspect knows details of the murder that were withheld from the press, taunts the police about it, alters records within sight of the police, and despite threatening to sue the LAPD for unlawful detention, has the gall to name his daughter Elizabeth.

This is as much a book about the Black Dahlia murder as it is a book about the shadiness of the Los Angeles police in the mid-century. Working in the court system, it was interesting to me to learn that interrogation methods like, say, holding a suspect upside down over a bridge to force a confession weren't explicitly illegal in 1940's California. Extortion of gangsters was a second form of income for the police. We've come a long way in the last 70 years.

Although I appreciated Eatwell's extensive research for this book, I also found it repetitive and at times outright pedantic. The book is 270 pages not counting the index and notes, yet she has a habit of footnoting incidents that she mentioned in prior chapters as if we might have forgotten what she is talking about. She footnotes the "Babes of Inglewood" child murder case at least FIVE TIMES, and on one occasion, mentions a Hollywood screenwriter, lists his credits, then FOOTNOTES THOSE SAME CREDITS ON THE SAME PAGE. It's funny in a way, but having constant footnotes to check that give no new information really slows the momentum of the reading. Trust in the power of your index, gurl. (Also, there's always Google.)

The only thing that bothered me about the theorizing in this book was the thought that Short's big toes were the only ones painted red because Dillon was a transvestite and not because she was poor and wearing open toed shoes and, being obsessed with appearances, wanted to keep up the front.

Overall, this book was informative. Some parts were repetitive. It’s a shame Elizabeth Short’s killer was never brought to justice.

3.5/5 Stars

I like the style, and the footnotes, and the structure. I rolled my eyes some at the 'evidence', but I find it more plausible than Hodel's, which is to say, plausible.