Executive summary: Michael Connelly’s latest novel, The Waiting, uses the Black Dahlia case as a device in his secondary plot involving Maddie Bosch. The treatment in the novel perpetuates mistakes and contributes to the folklore about the case, doubly unfortunate because Connelly is usually viewed as being close to the LAPD. The book refers to BDA (Black Dahlia Avenger) a few times, but skips George Hodel in favor of another suspect, which I’m sure Steve Hodel will find quite amusing. I know I did.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

I would prefer to support my local bookstore, Vroman’s in Pasadena, and ordered an advance copy but was told that the book wouldn’t be available for “maybe a week.” So I downloaded the Kindle version. Sigh. I only looked at the 35 matches for “Dahlia” and nothing else.

I expected better from Mike, frankly. Rick Jackson, former head of the LAPD cold case unit, is an advisor on Mike’s books and they tend to be well-researched. The Waiting is not at all well-researched, at least in terms of the Dahlia case.

For example, the Dahlia file cabinet in Robbery-Homicide is described as being virtually empty and all for show. This was definitely not true in 1996, when the late Detective Brian Carr let me see the file drawers but not examine the files in any way. The key to the cabinet was in the possession of someone in RHD. Brian did not have it on his key chain. Access, at least at that time, was tightly controlled.

Additionally, The Waiting says that all the evidence is missing. No, it’s not, simply because there was no evidence in the first place as Elizabeth Short was found naked; no clothing and no jewelry. All the investigators had was the material the killer mailed to the Los Angeles Examiner in an envelope addressed with cut-out letters. Her suitcases were not “evidence.” Her steamer trunk was not “evidence.” The envelope went to the LAPD crime lab for analysis. The contents may well be in the file cabinet, or possibly returned to the family. And recall that the killer doused everything with a solvent.

The book also claims that the witness interviews are missing, though at least one of them was on display, along with other Dahlia material, at the Los Angeles Police Museum in 2012. And recall that Elizabeth Short (regardless of what you read elsewhere) was missing for a week. There are no witnesses for anything that occurred after she left the Biltmore and before her body was found. None.

BIG SPOILER: The book claims that Elizabeth Short was killed and her blood went into a floor drain. Not at all. We know the killer had running water, which is essential for exsanguinating her. Plus her body was washed and scrubbed. This is ridiculous, frankly, to anyone who has studied the Black Dahlia case in a serious way.

In terms of the plot, the LAPD says the case is solved, the district attorney says it isn’t. Maddie Bosch joins the throng of people who hoped to make a career out of the Dahlia case and we have a “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” ending.

I’ll leave it to others to assess the book’s fictional worth. But for information on the Black Dahlia, it is surprising just how lousy it’s researched.