Black Dahlia : murder, monsters, and madness in midcentury Hollywood

Mann, William J.2026

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Summary

The brutal murder of twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short in 1947 has gripped the American psyche for nearly eighty years, yet no serious journalistic book on the case has ever been published. Until now. In previous accounts, Short has been mischaracterized as a wayward sex worker or con artist, responsible for and perhaps deserving of her fate. New York Times bestselling Hollywood biographer and true crime powerhouse William J. Mann re-creates the life of Elizabeth Short, as well as the hysteria that followed her death, revealing her to be a young woman with curiosity and drive who leveraged what little agency postwar society gave her to explore the world. Using a twenty-first-century lens, Mann connects Short's story to the anxious transitional era after World War II, when the nation was grappling with new ideas, new demographics, and new technologies. Short's life and tragic death offer surprising mirrors of our society today. After six years of sifting through evidence and interviewing surviving family members of the principals, Mann has identified the last suspect standing in the original investigation, previously largely unknown. He has strong opinions on who might've killed Short, and even stronger ones on who did not.