The Red Dahlia

By Lynda La Plante

Detective Anna Travis is working on a horrific, brutal murder case that has created a media frenzy. The victim, Louise Pennel, a 24-year-old, single, 'fun-loving' girl, was last seen in a London night club wearing a sequinned mini-dress and a red rose in her hair.

In an eerie mirror image of the famous LA murder case of Elizabeth Short in the l940s known as the Black Dahlia, her body was found dumped by the River Thames… severed in half and brutalised beyond recognition.

Anna Travis must summon all the strength and guile she became so well known for in ABOVE SUSPICION to hunt down this sadistic killer.

**Lynda La Plante's Widows is now a major motion picture**

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Release date: Sep 4, 2008
• ISBN: 9781847395108

Lynda La Plante

Lynda La Plante's novels, including the Prime Suspect series, have all been international bestsellers. She is an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and a recipient of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Dennis Potter Writers Award. Awarded a CBE, she is a member of the UK Crime Writers Awards Hall of Fame. She lives in London.

Reviews for The Red Dahlia

[bsquaredinoz · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The body of a young woman is found on the banks of the Thames in London. She is so disfigured and mutilated that even seasoned police struggle to maintain their composure. As the investigative team starts undertaking the hundreds of mundane but necessary tasks that will help them identify the woman and. hopefully her killer, they are taunted with news that the case is a copycat of a 1940’s murder which occurred in California and was the subject of a recently published book. DCI James Langton and DI Anna Travis are, for the second time, brought together to work on the case.

La Plante is a prolific writer of both crime fiction books and television shows but, apart from the Prime Suspect TV series, I’m not a particular fan of her work and haven’t religiously followed any of her series. Even then I think my fondness for that show has more to do with Helen Mirren’s acting in the pivotal role of Jane Tennison than La Plante’s writing. I’ve read a couple of her books before and have found them readable but not outstanding. I gave this book a go due to the recommendation of a friend but, again, I found it lacked something.

The plotting is good although it drags a bit for the first half. However it does a good job of showing the frustration that police must feel when there are no leads or clues or evidence in such cases. When the police have a key suspect and start investigating him and his family the suspense starts to build and I did become keen to find out how, or if, the case would resolve and there was a real build up of suspense towards the end. Unfortunately for me I found the increasingly detailed descriptions of the heinous acts committed by the main suspect took me out of the story rather than kept me riveted as I’m sure they were supposed to do.

I don’t have to like characters to be engaged by them but I do want them to be interesting in some way and none of the characters in The Red Dahlia had the ‘X’ factor that makes them stay with me after I’ve finished the book. Anna Travis is certainly clever with a vulnerable side but it felt a bit like La Plante had a checklist of characteristics and life events for her that were being marked off as the book progressed. James Langton is a similarly cardboard cutout character; another near-alcoholic, obsessive copper that I’ll forget all about inside a month. Neither the victims of the awful crimes nor the suspects were depicted in such a way as to generate much of a reaction in me either. There were some genuine human emotions displayed by the two daughters of the main suspect but their roles in the story weren’t enough to carry the entire book.

The last 100 or so pages of the book were great in terms of pacing and story development but in a near 500 page book that simply isn’t good enough. The rest of the book contained to much unnecessary filler, such as the entire thread involving the profiler which added nothing to the plot and minimally to character development. In combination with characters I didn’t care much about I was left with a somewhat ho hum reading experience.

[seldombites · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I very much enjoyed this book. I felt it was slightly more realistic than most police novels in that they were unable to identify a serial killer until recieving a tip off from somebody known to him. I also liked the fact that they took time to investigate the claim, questioning those around him, putting him under surveillance etc instead of just marching up and arresting him on the spot - the evidence was hard to find and wasn't handed to them on a platter. Worth reading.

[maneekuhi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Red Dahlia is the 2nd book in the Anna Travis series and is based on a fictional copycat of the real life Black Dahlia that occurred in the Los Angeles area in the 1940's. There are many parallels, perhaps too many, and as the book focused on the killer and his victims, much of this reader's interest in the original case waned. (For the more gruesome oriented readers there are many crime scene and autopsy photos available for your viewing pleasure on image search websites such as Google, Bing, etc.) While I agree with some of the criticisms of other reviewers below, I found most of these to be minor distractions and my bottomline is that this is a very good story and enhances the series. I liked the cops' passion and urgent desire to "get this guy". Interviews with persons of interest were done very well. The police team jelled in this book, a lot more than in the first, and heroine Anna was not the one to uncover every important clue, nor have every important intuition, etc. I believe this book is generally the lowest rated in the series, so I look forward to the remaining ones. The Anna-Boss and the Anna-Reporter relationships didn't feel quite "real" for me yet, so I'll be anxious to see how things develop and how credible those twists and turns are.

[katpor_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed Prime Suspect (TV series) on PBS and thought I should read some of Lynda La Plante's books. I just couldn't get into this book. It started out well, but I didn't have any interest in the characters and never finished the book,

[kanata_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great book in the Anna Travis series. I have been put off British mysteries for awhile but this wrangled me back in. Quite a gruesome killing but well written and kept me interested right up until the end. The connection to the infamous Black Dahlia case made for a good plot.

[bcquinnsmom · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Red Dahlia is second in a series to feature DI Anna Travis, behind Above Suspicion, which I own but haven't yet read, although I don't think I missed anything. This was an outstanding mystery novel...perfect pace, building suspense throughout, characters that seemed real, and a story that kept me reading until I finished the book.While out delivering the last of his newspapers, a young boy makes a gruesome discovery. The police arrive and discover the body of a young woman, severed in half, bloodless, and with grotesque cuts on either side of her mouth. One of the local newspapers gets an anonymous letter that relates the case to the old unsolved case of the Black Dahlia in Los Angeles, and Anna Travis and her team realize that they have their work cut out for them. Anna's gov, Morgan, is hospitalized, and DCI James Langton, with whom Anna had worked before and with whom she had some history, takes the lead in investigating the case. A profiler brought in to help realizes that the killer is going to strike again if the police do not find him, but the police have their hands full just trying to find out about the victim. The novel is absolutely a mystery lover's novel. The first half of the book involves the team getting up to speed with the Black Dahlia case and trying to find out as much as they can about the victim, while the second half is all about locating the killer after an anonymous caller reluctantly leaves information about the murder. The mystery is very tightly plotted and the writing is excellent. LaPlante's characterizations are very well drawn, never being dragged down to the level of cardboard cutouts, the action never stops and the payoff is worth the 400+ pages of reading. I can most highly recommend this book -- it is probably one of my favorite mystery reads in a while.

[hera_7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gosh, this was exciting! La Plante's ear for dialogue is superb. The suspense was brilliantly sustained. I will definitely be seeking out all her other books.

[smik_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The second in the Anna Travis series.The body of a young girl is discovered on the banks of the Thames. Clues point to the possibility that the death is a mirror image of a Los Angeles case from the 1940s, known as "The Black Dahlia". The murderer sets clues to taunt the police. A second body is discovered and still there is no break through. Anna is again working with Detective Chief Inspector Langton and she has trouble in working out how he feels about her. He seems very enamoured of an American profiler. But the days roll on and still there is no breakthrough. And then comes the anonymous phone call with a name.. This is an unabridged reading by Jane McTeer who does an excellent job of charactisation. Approx 6 hours.

[ladyn_4 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This was my second venture into Lynda La Plante's work, the first being the excellent Bella Mafia. I was very disappointed.The Red Dahlia is a drawn out mystery, the material of which promises an exciting journey which is unfortunately not delivered. I found a great deal of syntax lead to a confused understanding of events, not to mention some sketchily detailed chronology, and a lazy approach to some details. Once the "whodunnit" aspect has been revealed, there is still a lot more of the book to come, which sadly is not executed well enough to keep one gripped.Based closely upon the L.A. Black Dahlia murder case, one gets the feeling that a huge amount of La PLante's work had been done for her on this one, and she had very little to add. A shame.