Customer Reviews

A Kiss Before Dying

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Stephen King once commented about author Ira Levin: "Every novel he has ever written has been a marvel of plotting. He is the Swiss watchmaker of the suspense novel; he makes what the rest of us do look like those five-dollar watches you can buy in the discount drug stores." He went on to lament that Levin's most effective book (and his first!), "A Kiss before Dying," is not much read these days.

Here's your chance to fix this situation! "A Kiss before Dying" is now back in print, in a nice trade paperback, for the first time since the early 90s (when a mass-market paperback was briefly available to tie-in with the forgotten movie adaptation starring Sean Young and Matt Dillon). First published in 1953 when Levin was only twenty-three, "A Kiss before Dying" is one of the most remarkable suspense novels ever penned and a masterpiece of literary noir. The greatest suspense writer of all time, Cornell Woolrich, highly influenced Levin, and this book seems like an overt homage to many of Woolrich's devices. It's the only suspense novel I know of that honestly compares with the master.

To tell much about the plot would ruin the shocks and surprises awaiting you in these pages. Levin hurls out plot twists that genuinely jolt the reader and turn the whole story upside down in moments (King referred to one of the twists as "a real screeching bombsell" of a surprise). The story begins at a large college, where Dorothy Kingship, daughter of a wealthy industrialist, has learned that she is pregnant. Her boyfriend, a handsome, dashing, but callous, calculating, and completely amoral young man is unhappy with the news; he hoped to marry into the rich family as his quick ticket to success, and the uptight Leo Kingship will certainly disinherit his daughter when he finds out about the pregnancy. Dorothy wants to marry right away, not caring if her father cuts her off or not, but her boyfriend starts secretly devising another plan...if only he can make it look like suicide...

And that's merely the beginning. The book takes so many u-turns and switchbacks that you'll spend most of your time reading it shaking with tension. Levin crafts his three central set-pieces using minute detail that makes for agonizing suspense. He lets the reader in on the secrets of the story bit by bit, but the more you know, the tenser the story becomes. Sometimes, you know the WHAT and WHO of a situation, but not the WHEN or HOW. At other times, you know the WHAT and WHEN but not WHO. Levin will drive you nearly mad in places! King is right: Levin's plotting is so ingenious it's like workings of a perfect machine.

But beyond plot machinery, Levin dazzles in another area: characterizations. Like Woolrich, Levin can create haunting portraits of lonely souls, and frightening sketches of soulless killers. "A Kiss before Dying" is pure noir: a world of sad people aching for real love and of people who find that killing is no more difficult than putting on a jacket. This is not a "snack food" suspense novel like you find sitting on bestseller shelves. This is a novel that will stay with you for a long time.

It's unfortunate that Levin has written so few novels since (he didn't write his second novel, "Rosemary's Baby" until fourteen years later; he spent the time between as a writer for TV and Broadway stage). Everything he has written is worth reading (check out "The Stepford Wives," "The Boys from Brazil," "Sliver," and his hit play "Deathtrap"), but "A Kiss before Dying" is his art at its best. Don't miss it.

'A kiss before dying' was written in the fifties, and apart from some very non-essential aspects it is not dated at all. The book is about a young college student from a poor family who wants to marry a rich girl and for that he is prepared to do practically everything. Until she meets the wrong person, who starts digging... There are some very ingenious turns in the book, so telling more about the story would only give it all away. I can only say Read it! It is definitely worth your time.

Do you know how most books save their big surprise for the end? This one fools ya -- there are a couple of big surprises sprinkled at the most, well, surprising places in the book. I won't tell you where they are -- that would be cheating.

Besides the surprises, this one has plenty of suspense and interesting characters. Even the villain is memorable, and in many ways, understandable.

Anne M. Marble Reviewer, All About Romance

This book began my love for the writing of Ira Levin. It is so stylish and damnably clever and holds up perfectly, these many years later. I have given this book to several people recently and they all have been amazed by it. So deftly plotted, the writing so assured. And even though the plot device has been ripped off ad nauseum by many lesser talents, this book still packs a helluva wallop. Bravo

This is one of the most suspenseful, most enjoyable books I've ever read. How tired I was on 3 workday mornings because I'd stayed up late reading this book, unable to put it down - only 3 mornings because I read it all in 4 evenings. This book is too good to give away any of the plot. Reading it, I felt I was watching one of Hitchock's best movies playing in my brain. There's a point about 1/3 through the book where I stopped dumbfounded and said to myself "no way - that can't be", and then thumbed through the pages I'd just read to confirm it *was* true. An absolutely ingenious element left me feeling like I was starting from the beginning after reading 1/3 of the book. There are many other twists and surprises in this story, too, and the subject matter is surprisingly contemporary.

I can't imagine anyone not loving this book.

The thing that sets this book apart from other, similarly plotted stories is the way that Levin plays with our emotions concerning the murderer. For the first third of the novel, there is a small part of us that is sypathetic with this man; we almost catch ourselves hoping that he does not get caught. Several surprises later, however, and our emotions are totally flip-flopped. Now we are gived things from another persons perspective, and we can see just how monstrous this man really is. The book is very addictive (I finished it easily in two days), but the ending left me slightly unsatisfied. I would still place Levin's "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Stepford Wives" above it, but it is impressive nonetheless considering that it is one of Levin's earlier novels.

I have read several of Ira Levin's books. I have really liked them all. Ira has a style of writing that engages you and makes you feel like a friend is telling you the story. If you have seen "A Place in the Sun" (Elizabeth Taylor, Shelly Winters - a fabulous movie) then you pretty much are going to guess most of the story. It doesn't differ too much from that, HOWEVER you will be engrossed absolutley even though you THINK you know what's going to happen :) I was a little disappointed with the ending-the rest of the book was so exciting that the end seemed a little too neat and pretty - pretty. I really don't think you can go wrong no matter which Ira Levin book you read (or can manage to find..most are no longer in print-part of the attraction). Devious actions and thoughts make his characters memorable. I think the real horror lies in his ability to take a mundane thing and find the dark side of it.

The author sure knows how to keep things exiting! He always ends the chapter with a thrilling moment, which made me want to go on reading. I almost couldn't put the book aside, I utilized every spare hour. Her style of writing pleased me very well, it never drops off. I experienced this book as a form of acting, in writing. The characters in the story are individually exposed from the inside, in a seamless performance from one perspective to the other. Perhaps this is the secret of this books' vividness. I detected only one small thing where I was beginning to feel bored about; In the part called "Marion", we caught sight of the inside of the factory of Mr. Kingship, by looking through Buds' eyes. But in my view he was endlessly persuading about it, I got tired of it. All in all I'm very glad I've read this book. The film wasn't as good as the book itself.

It is a shame that there are not more books out there like this one with fast moving suspense. All I could think of while reading this book was how tight the story was. Ira Levin does not waste a single word. He gets right to the point and holds you there!! This book made me want to read everything that Ira Levin has ever written. Fantastic!! If you like great suspense, psychological thrillers and stories with a twist...this book is definately for you!

Just when you think you know exactly where this little tale is headed, it veers off on one of the most unexpected (and simply perfect) twists I've read in a long time. If your looking for a suspense novel full of murder, mayhem and some great plot twists, this slim work fits the bill nicely.