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SHADOW OF THE DAHLIA
by Jack Bludis
Quiet Storm Books, February 2005
204 pages
$14.95
ISBN: 0975857118


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

PI Rick Page is looking for the wife of airplane magnate Tyree Prendergast (Howard Hughes?) who has gone missing. Prendergast doesn't like to lose anything that belongs to him.

Los Angeles in 1947 is changing rapidly. Many of the servicemen who came through the city during the war have returned to settle there. The studio system is still in effect and many young women have come to LA to try to become a movie star. The studios just take them in, use them for a short time, and spit them out, so they have to earn a living any way they can.

Laura Prendergast, Tyree's wife, was one of those. She had been an MGM starlet who became a call girl, Prendergast tries to keep this part of his wife's background quiet, but Page finds it out from his buddy, Sgt Marco Sandiri of the LAPD.

Page and Sandiri had started in the LAPD together before the war, but Rick went off to fly planes for Uncle Sam while Marco stayed home and gradually rose in the department to his current rank.

Dixie Joy was an MGM starlet, who now works as secretary to the man who is behind the call girl operation in Los Angeles. She tries to make Rick promise not to continue to search for Laura. Dixie tells him Prendergast abused her but Rick makes no promises despite Dixie's entreaties.

Sandiri also tries to tell Page not to bother looking for Laura. The LAPD won't help. Everyone is obsessed with the murder of Elizabeth Short, the 'Black Dahlia' whose body, cut in half, was found in an empty lot. A few days later, Page finds the body of Laura Prendergast brutally mutilated. Are these crimes related?

SHADOW OF THE DAHLIA is written in the style of an earlier time. The descriptions of suits and ties and hats worn by the men and the clothing of the women bring back those earlier days. Bludis brings us back to that time almost 50 years ago, when Americans were more innocent and the murder of a young woman caused horror in the community, instead of the more blasé response of modern times. The book is a throwback to the golden age of noir and is well worth seeking out.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, June 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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