Die a Little: A Novel [Hardcover]

Megan Abbott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 2005

FEMME FATALES

OBSESSIVE LOVE

DOUBLE CROSSES

How does a respectable young woman fall into Los Angeles' hard-boiled underworld?

Shadow-dodging through the glamorous world of 1950s Hollywood and its seedy flip side, Megan Abbott's debut, Die a Little, is a gem of the darkest hue. This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney's office. Lora's comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past.

Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice's personal history and possibly jealous of Alice's hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder.

Lora's fascination with Alice's "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice's secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice's sinister past -- and present.

Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A velvety 1950s Southern California vibe suffuses this noirish novel about a young woman who sacrifices her own innocence while trying to protect her brother from the seamy side of life. Orphaned when they were children, Bill and Lora King live together well into adulthood, until Bill meets Alice Steele, a beautiful damsel in distress whose mysterious past and even more mysterious present set off alarms for Lora. Ere long Bill, a junior investigator in the district attorney's office, proposes to Alice and the two marry, but Lora becomes increasingly sure there's more to Alice's murky past than the alcoholic mother and deadbeat father she talks about. "Under the harsh lamp, in sharp contrast to the dark room, her eyes look strangely eaten through. The eyes of a death mask..." Lora makes self-deprecating Nancy Drew jokes even as she initiates a personal investigation, skulking around seedy motor courts and hiding in alleys. What the likable Lora discovers—drugs, sex, corruption and murder—fascinates her as much as it frightens her. Abbott, author of a nonfiction study of hard-boiled literature and film, crafts a stylish, sensuous tale with picture-perfect period trappings.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

It's 1954, and Pasadena schoolteacher Lora King has carved out a life of square contentment with her brother, Bill, an investigator in the DA's office. That changes when Bill falls hard for Alice Steele, a seamstress at a Hollywood studio. When Bill and Alice marry, Lora wants to be happy for them; she really, truly does. But she can't help sensing something dark in her brother's new bride. Even as Lora and Alice play at being sisters, bonding over thrillingly elaborate party preparations, secrets--ugly secrets!--seep out of Alice's past. Lora risks everything to uncover the truth, pocketing address books filled with cryptic code and tailing shady characters like a grown-up Nancy Drew. As Lora puts it, "There is a string I am pulling together, a string of question marks so long they are beginning to clatter against each other, and loudly." While Abbott doesn't match the scope and sheer virtuosity of Ellroy's L.A. Confidential, she does nail a similarly hushed and lurid tone in a tale that smolders like the night's last, forgotten cigarette. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (February 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743261704
• ISBN-13: 978-0743261708
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #294,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar-winning author of the novels Die a Little, The Song Is You, Queenpin and Bury Me Deep, which was nominated for six awards: the Edgar Award, Hammett Prize, the Macavity, Anthony and Barry Awards and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her writing has appeared in Wall Street Noir, Detroit Noir, Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year, Phoenix Noir, Storyglossia, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer, Queens Noir and the LA Noire Anthology.

Her upcoming novel, The End of Everything, comes out in July 2011.

Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English Literature and went on to receive her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She lives in Queens, New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The dark side of Hollywood..., April 10, 2005

By 

Mercedes L. Johnmeyer "The Most Happy" (Summerville, SC) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Die a Little: A Novel (Hardcover)

This was a great read! One I had a very hard time putting down. Set in 1950's Hollywood, it explores the dark, twisted lives of high powered studio men, call girls, drugs and murder. Bill and Lora are siblings living in quiet suburbia in Pasadena. He's a cop and she's a school teacher. Then Bill meets vivacious Alice Steele when her car hits his. A friendship blossoms, and soon after a relationship. The two marry, buy a house, and settle into simple lives.

In the beginning all is well. Lora is happy for her brother and loves having sophisticated Alice around, who throws lavish neighborhood parties and is always in the spotlight. But soon Lora starts to notice little things that don't seem quite right. Dark edges around sweet Alice...who is Alice really, and where did she come from?

As Lora gets deeper and deeper into the trenches of shady Hollywood, she begins to realize that she's getting caught up in everything, she's beginning to change from the mundane schoolteacher into something else, something bad. Can she figure everything out before it's too late? I've gotta say I really recommend this book. I initially picked it up because of the era it's set in, but the story really grabbed me. Definitely give it a try...you won't be disappointed!

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cool, dark tale of intrigue and secrets, February 21, 2005

By 

techmannn "techmannn" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Die a Little: A Novel (Hardcover)

I found this novel impossible to put down. Think of the dark atmospheric films of David Lynch, but here you get a much more satisfying, coherent story. The two most important women characters play a fascinating game of cat and mouse. I really liked the character of Alice: hot, smart and always ready to act as her circumstances change. The author is particularly good at giving all of her characters psychologically plausible motivations. When you get to end, you will be thinking about it for days.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now for Something a Bit Different, February 6, 2005

By 

mystery junkie (Detroit) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Die a Little: A Novel (Hardcover)

I was hooked on this book by the end of the first page. There is something really different about it--aside from the powerful characters being women. You feel like you've stepped into Hollywood in the fifties because the author so captures the atmosphere of that era. After I finished, I felt like going out and finding some old movie magazines. Do they still publish them? And yet, the writing is very literary--poetic even. Waiting eagerly for the next book. Hope she sets it in Hollywood in the fifties too.