Rating: 
Summary: I'm fairly convinced.
Review: Quite a bit of this book is shaky - far too much of it is speculation and theorizing, but if you sort through all that, there is a solid foundation for the case against Hodel. Its not an indisputable case, but I think Hodel has to be considered the most likely suspect for the Dahlia Killer.
What really convinced me is the evidence that was released after the book was first released. I won't go into detail, but the files the LAPD had on Hodel go a long way towards backing up the author's claims. Anyone who says that the supposed Dahlia pictures and the stuff about Man Ray are the heart of the case is being as dishonest as they accuse Steve Hodel of being. Its a straw man argument that focuses on the weakest parts of author Hodel's case, not the best.
Rating: 
Summary: Black Dahlia Avenger by Steve Hodel
Review: Read this book quickly and wanted to write a review while I still had in fresh in my mind.First of all, people who follow the case of Betty Short are desperate for anything written on it and I'm sure will buy and devour the book regardless of what I or any reviewer will say. So that out of the way... There is no denying that Hodel has many more credentials and much more life and work experience going for him than other authors of BD books. For that very reason, I was excited about reading this book. But ultimately, this a circumstantial evidence case and I was left with some questions unanswered and some connections questioned. The pictures in Dr. Hodel's photo album which started the entire journey. To me, these do NOT look like Elizabeth Short. There is simply not enough resemblance for me to swallow that assumption. There are still people alive who knew her. Why didn't he show any of them the picture? Why were no known photographs of Betty included to make comparisions and further prove his case to the reader? The only living picture of Betty other than Hodel's that is in this book is on the dustjacket cover. I don't think that's an accident. So with the first, integral bit of evidence in question it was a bit hard to swallow the rest of it. Particularly since Hodel stacks evidence on top of questionable evidence. Example, the banana is blue so therefore lemons are blue. In actuality, a banana isn't blue and neither is a lemon, but he runs with it anyway. Hodel is convinced that Dr. Hodel is "wealthy Hollywood man" suspect that the LAPD was hiding. How he makes this connection was lost to me. It seemed to be more along the lines of an assumption. While his father was wealthy, had deviant sexual tastes and lots of connections, there are many man in Los Angeles in the 40s who fit this criteria. Hell, even today there are many man in Hollywood who fit this criteria. And yes, he probably was a suspect in the case, but so was Mark Hansen - I don't think he did it either. Also, much of his case comes from researching the newspapers of the time. I'm apprehensive about this technique of putting together a case simply because newspaper journalists are not 100% accurate or reliable. So I was left questioning and doubting a lot of turns because they had come from old newspaper articles. I don't feel this is entirely credible, but I suppose as a case gets colder and colder, there isn't much left. But it is interesting to see the older, forgotten turns in the case through media. While I find it hard to believe his named suspect, I'm relieved that someone has finally been able to see that there has been a police cover-up with this case. His interview with a former partner shows us that the file has been sanitized. Also his point that there is no "lost week" was interesting too. I truly do appreciate his defense of her honor as well. Elizabeth Short's image has been pulled through the mud and it was good to have someone else defend her. Read Mary Pacio's Childhood Shadows for another good character presentation. Overall, glad I read it but I'm still skeptical. The author states that he is still working on this case so I'll definitely be interested to see what else he has found.
Rating: 
Summary: More Incredible Than Fiction
Review: Steve Hodel's compelling "Black Dahlia Avenger" would almost certainly be rejected as a fictional project due to a highly improbable plot. Hodel was a crack homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who, following retirement, went to work as a private detective. Upon being presented by his father's last wife with a photo album after Dr. George Hodel's death, the former homicide detective's curiosity was enhanced by locating photographs of a face he found familiar. After convincing himself that the photos were of Elizabeth Short, better known as "The Black Dahlia," victim of the most famous unsolved murder case in L.A. Police annals, Hodel's bulldog investigative instincts went to work. The result was the shattering conclusion that his genius father, possessor of an Einstein level IQ, was a serial killer who had brutally murdered Short as well as other victims in the Los Angeles area until his departure in 1950. Dr. Hodel lived 40 years abroad, most of it in Manila, before returning to the U.S. toward the end of his life, dying in San Francisco. A major question mark in my mind for years was how someone with unquestionable technical skills and so brutally vicious would engage in a killing such as The Black Dahlia Murder, then never strike again, as so many, including police officers, claimed. I was also perplexed that, while Short was highly active socially while in L.A., her last week was a mystery. The last time she was supposedly seen was leaving the Biltmore Hotel in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Hodel clears up those important questions. His rigorous investigation reveals that there were many unsolved mysteries of females slain during the 1947 to 1950 period, pushing the figure well above the normal department rate in that area. Detective Hodel links them to his father along with an accomplice, Fred Sexton,indicating that Sexton might also have been involved in the murder of Short. He also reveals that an L.A.P.D. policewoman was confronted by an almost hysterical woman expressing fear that she was about to be killed. In her hysteria she left her purse in the bar where she had been drinking. The policewoman took her back after she calmed her down, then watched her exit not long thereafter with two men. The foregoing points prompts one to ask just what was going on within the department at that point. Hodel addresses that point with sad reluctance. The L.A.P.D. he loved and faithfully served was in the midst of its second successive wave of corruption. The first, in the late thirties and early forties, resulted in the recall of Mayor Frank Shaw and replacement by a reform judge, Fletcher Bowron. The second wave extended into the early fifties when tough-minded William H. Parker took control. Hodel write persuasively on the necessity of the department to keep the lid on the corruption that existed, including poor and botched investigations into homicides such as Black Dahlia and other cases. The second wave was one of the important elements of James Ellroy's novel, "L.A. Confidential," which was heavily rooted in fact. Hodel may have even solved the murder of Ellroy's mother as well, showing the picture of George Sexton, who was living in the L.A. area at the time and appears to be a dead ringer for the suspected killer shown in composite drawings of the period. Dr. Hodel was a shrewd man who knew where many police bodies were literally buried. That is why he would remain a suspect the police were reluctant to pursue, while the District Attorney's office registered eagerness to proceed with a vigorous investigation. It is fascinating to observe a crack homicide detective in action, as one does while reading this riveting work, which I could not put down until I completed it. Stephen Kay, the senior prosecutor in the L.A. County District Attorney's office, is convinced enough of Hodel's proposed evidence to state that he would be willing to prosecute Dr. George Hodel on the basis of what his diligent son uncovered, including convincing handwriting similarities.
Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly debunked
Review: This book made a big splash in the media when it came out, but since then just about every piece of "evidence" in it has been refuted as completely false or highly dubious. You know it's bad when Steve Hodel and his "fans" (funny that so many of them seem know so much detailed background on the book, while claiming to have just read it) are reduced to pointing out that independent handwriting experts could not conclusively rule out the possibility that George Hodel may have written some notes that may or may not have been written by the Black Dahlia killer, although they found no evidence that he did. Insulting people who have read the book and found it wanting doesn't do much for its credibility, either.
The bottom line is that George Hodel was a suspect in the Black Dahlia case, was investigated, and was cleared. His son Steve could have written a fascinating book based on that alone. But he didn't. He wrote this dreck instead.
Rating:
Summary: Illuminates only a son's disturbing obsession
Review: When the definitive, encyclopedic book on the Black Dahlia murder is written, no doubt an entertaining but brief chapter will be devoted to Dr. George H. Hodel. The colorful and perhaps shady Hollywood physician (but not a surgeon!) briefly became a suspect in the notorious unsolved murder three years after the crime, in the wake of never-proven incest allegations made by his troubled teenage daughter. The doctor was investigated, his house was bugged, and dozens of people he knew were questioned. Ultimately, he was cleared of any connection to the murder. This book, written by the doctor's son, may be a footnote to that chapter.
Author Steve Hodel, who was apparently a respected retired LAPD officer prior to the publication of this book, wants the world to know that his father wasn't merely a suspect, he did the deed -- and dozens of other LA murders right through the 1960s, despite the fact that Dad didn't even live in the US for most of that time. Steve knows this because of two snapshots he found belonging to his just after Dad passed away (and thus, conveniently for Steve and his publisher, passed beyond the ability to talk back or sue for libel). Steve recognized the women in both pictures as the Black Dahlia, and so began his quest to prove that Daddy did it.
The only trouble is, the pictures look nothing like the Black Dahlia. Even the woman's family has come forward to say they are not her, and a forensic facial recognition expert hired by a TV news show further confirmed this obvious fact. Upon inspection, the rest of Steve's incriminating evidence turned out to be just as phony: key witnesses Steve claims identified a man fitting his father's description were actually shown pictures of a man looking nothing like him; physical evidence completely rules Dad out of the copycat murder of Jeanne French that Steve tries to pin on him; handwriting evidence doesn't stand up to independent analysis; carefully isolated wiretap quotes lose their shock value when put in their factual context; scandalous charges against his father's famous (and also conveniently dead) acquaintances fizzle when checked against reputable biographical sources; and on and on. The fake "facts" in this book are so plentiful it would take another book to enumerate them all.
When Steve isn't citing fabricated evidence, he is constructing byzantine chains of speculation that defy all common sense, and then declaring his imaginings to be fact. Steve even claims to have known nothing about his dad being investigated for the murder, even though his own book shows this was never any secret, but this minor detail is almost lost amid the giant pile of absurdities the reader is asked to swallow. In one of the book's saddest yet funniest moments, Steve declares that the reason the present-day LAPD doesn't take his findings seriously is not because his claims are ridiculous but because there is an ongoing conspiracy (you knew there had to be a conspiracy, right?) to cover up the truth.
This book is not for true crime fans or for anyone wanting to learn about the Black Dahlia murder, but it is marginally interesting as a portrait of a unhappy son's willingness to sacrifice everything, not least his own reputation as a police officer, in order to convince the world and perhaps himself that his father was not just a flawed man or even on balance a bad man, but a serial killer, "pure evil", and a monster of epic proportions. Many have suggested this book be classified as fiction, but perhaps it fits better under Abnormal Psychology.
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