3. JAMES ELLROY, “BLACK DAHLIA” (1987) The mutilated body of Elizabeth Short is discovered in an empty residential lot in Leimert Park, kicking off the case that will take over Officer Dwight “Bucky” Bleichert’s life.

4. WALTER MOSLEY, “DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS” (1990) Easy Rawlins is sitting in a bar in South Central Los Angeles in 1948 when a white man in a linen suit walks in and offers him money to track down a missing blonde.

[ Read Herbert Mitgang’s original review ]

5. MICHAEL CONNELLY, “THE BLACK ECHO” (1992) In his stilt house in the Hollywood Hills, Detective Harry Bosch broods, listens to jazz records and attempts to solve the murder of a fellow Vietnam vet whose body was discovered in a drainpipe at Mulholland dam.

6. APRIL SMITH, “NORTH OF MONTANA” (1994) Ana Grey, an F.B.I. agent, must delve into the dense Latino neighborhood near MacArthur Park that she calls “El Piojillo” to solve the murder of an immigrant mother.

7. MEGAN ABBOTT, “DIE A LITTLE” (2005) A schoolteacher, Lora King, moves to a one-bedroom apartment on Pasadena’s west side, where she obsesses about her brother’s marriage to a mysterious woman.