Sunday, February 05, 2006

Larry Harnisch blogs the big bad Wolfe book

When Nathan and I spoke with Donald H. Wolfe, author of "The Black Dahlia Files," at a book signing recently, we brought visual aids with which to draw his attention to his plagiarism of our colleague Larry Harnisch's L.A. Times Dahlia article and website. (The entirety of page 295 is Larry's writing, improperly credited to John Douglas.)

Mr. Wolfe seemed flabbergasted, said he had paid Douglas' publishers to use the quotes, and promised he would check into the matter, and apologize if he'd made a mistake. While Larry waits for that apology, he's holding his nose and reading Wolfe's daffy tome, and blogging his reactions. Only on page 6, he's already gone debunked the claims that there was no nightlife in 1947 L.A., that the Examiner printed a huge-selling extra on the day of the Dahlia killing, and Wolfe's absurd claims of having been "raised on the wrong side of the tracks in Beverly Hills."

Larry warns "if you're not into Dahlia minutiae this will be painfully tedious." Tune in and see for yourself.

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