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Die A Little by Megan Abbott (view source)
Revision as of 13:27, 3 October 2020
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{{infobox infobox1
|title= Die A Little
|author= Megan Abbott
|date= August 2008
|isbn=978-1847393463
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>1847393462</amazonuk> |amazonusaznuk=1847393462|aznus=<amazonus>0743261704</amazonus>
}}
Now we have Megan Abbott, who is attempting to do the same; rather bravely for a debut novel. However, it appears that she is also a devotee of the works of Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and has learned much from them.
Bill and Lora King are a pretty ordinary pair; he an investigator for the District Attorney and she a school teacher. They are as close as a brother and sister can be, until Bill meets and marries Alice, who was a seamstress for one of the Hollywood studios. Everything seems wonderful, Alice making house and Bill seeming happier than ever, but Alice comes with a past which is at odds with her new life and things keep appearing that makes Lora wonder who this Alice really was before she became Mrs King.
Despite it being the kind of thing she would never do and despite a distrust of the world Alice has seemingly come from, Lora decides to dig a little deeper into matters. She worries that if anyone but her uncovers Alice's past, it may damage her brother's reputation in the D. A.'s office and ruin his career, if not his whole life. But on the way, she encounters some quite unsavoury characters and situations and it may be her own life that is affected by her investigations.
However, it is only by comparison that Abbott's work can fall down in any way and even then, it's only a pace or two behind one of the greats of the genre. What Abbott has given us, and this seems even more impressive considering it's a debut novel, is a tantalising glimpse into a world we can never hope to know but, like Lora King, cannot resist delving into to find out more, regardless of the cost to ourselves. In my case, this cost was a couple of nights without sleep; what will it cost you?
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag. We also have a review of [[The End of Everything by Megan Abbott]].
For more fiction set in the nineteen fifties , we can recommend [[Christine Falls by Benjamin Black]] which is set in Dublin or [[The Outcast by Sadie Jones]] for a quintessentially English setting. We also enjoyed [[Cold Hearts by Gunnar Staalesen]].
{{amazontext|amazon=1847393462}}