"The brutal murder of Elizabeth Short--better known as the Black Dahlia--in 1947 has been in the public consciousness for nearly eighty years, yet no serious study of the crime has ever been published. Short has been mischaracterized as a wayward sex worker or vagabond, and--like the seductive femme fatales of film noir--responsible for and perhaps deserving of her fate. William J. Mann, however, is interested in the truth. His extensive research reveals her as a young woman with curiosity and drive, who leveraged what little agency postwar society gave her to explore the world, defying draconian postwar gender expectations to settle down, marry, and have children. It's time to re-examine the woman who became known as the Black Dahlia. Using a 21st-century lens, Mann connects Short's story to the anxious era after World War II, when the nation was grappling with new ideas, new demographics, new technologies, and old fears dressed up as new ones. Only by situating the Black Dahlia case within this changing world can we understand the tragedy of this young woman, whose life and death offer surprising mirrors on today"--