Queenpin: A Novel (Paperback)

by Megan Abbott (Author)
Key Phrases: Megan Abbott, Amos Mackey, Tee Hee (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Edgar-finalist Abbott (Die a Little) delivers a sharp, slender, hardboiled tale of a protégé's schooling by a notorious, been-there-done-that moll. The first time the unnamed 22-year-old female narrator lays eyes on Gloria Denton, her first thought is I want the legs. The setting is the Club Tee Hee, an indeterminate Las Vegas–L.A. nowhere where the kid is doing the mobbed-up books, and Gloria comes in every few weeks to count Jerome's vig. The kid absorbs very entertaining lessons in how to dress, move, behave, and how to pick up, transport and distribute payoffs and winnings—until she falls for sweet-talking gambler Vic Riordan. Abbott is pitch-perfect throughout: Gloria Denton, still turning heads in her 40s, is as hard a moll as any, and the kid is a beautiful combination of foil and tool as she strives to emulate her role model. The collision, violent and inevitable, rips away the facade of glitz and glamour, and leaves their low-end edifice starkly exposed.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Working from her story in the anthology Damn Near Dead (2006), noir's reigning crown princess delivers a royally entertaining rumination on toxic female friendships set in the harsh neon underbelly of early-1960s Las Vegas. The tale of an avaricious assistant to a Virginia Hill-style Mob courier unfolds so cinematically it's difficult not to picture it onscreen--perhaps pitched as The Grifters meets Casino, with Sharon Stone and Scarlett Johansson under the leering direction of Quentin Tarantino. "Gloria's girl," they call her when she's corralling payoffs from casino managers, fixing odds at the track, and doling out pad money to the cops. But she's out for a glorious score, and the taste of a gem heist she sets up only makes her ravenous for more. It's too bad that head for nasty business is paired with a body built for even nastier sin--and a heart foolish enough to go out to Vic Riordan, a self-destructive gambler nearing his final spin of the wheel. It'd be nice to get a better glimpse of her motivations, but this is a sleek, slick, seductive treat. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416534288
• ISBN-13: 978-1416534280
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #186,270 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Noir, October 2, 2007

By	Gayle "brighttyger" (California) - See all my reviews

Die A Little is still my favorite, but this book is a sleek dark rocket. I could not put it down. When my husband read Die A Little, he said he loved it, and would read anything else Megan Abbott wrote, but that he wished James M. Cain had done a pass over it. He got his wish in this book. Lean and mean, but still displaying Abbott's own poetic voice, Queenpin is a knockout noir, taut and twisted, neon surface glitter hiding subterranean depths.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Retro without the soul, July 7, 2008

By	Lily Courthope - See all my reviews

I gave this author a second try (I previously read 'The Song Is You') because she gets such rave reviews for writing noir, and also because strong female protagonists in noir are extremely rare. Unfortunately, I wasn't any more fond of this book that I was of the other one. I never do get that delicious chill of wicked characters swimming through a ruthless underworld. That IS what is happening in this book, but I just never got that tiny frisson (sometimes of fear, sometimes of revulsion) that I get when I read really good noir (Cain, Chandler, et al); the book feels like the author was taking boxes from aisle one and cans from aisle two in the Shop Noir Supermarket. She created a sketch of a story, populated it with the necessary number of flawed characters, had them be bad in chapters X and Y, and killed them in chapters T and Z. The prose isn't bad, but it feels rigged for how noir is supposed to sound as opposed to how the characters really think and feel and talk. I can see why Abbott's books are liked by others, but for me this one seems too obviously contrived, too much pain-by-numbers (yes, I meant to leave out the T) to get me emotionally involved. It's like I'm trying to read Chandler through a fogged window. And the little trick of the lead character seeming to have no name, it's been done.

The one thing I do like about Abbott's books is the terrific retro cover art. I'm almost willing to keep buying the books just for the great artwork.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing sophomore effort, April 22, 2008

By	Todd Stockslager (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews

OK, I really enjoyed Abbot's first mystery romp, rating it five stars (Die a Little: A Novel), but that might have been beginners luck. This sophomore slump is barely worth the trees sacrificed to print it.

Abbott lays on the Mike Hammer slang so thickly that it almost rings like parody, except for the earnest naivety in the story line that assures me that the author is playing the story straight, not for laughs. Nothing new here, except for the small twist of a female first-person narrator doing small bag jobs for her mid-level female (queenpin, get it?) boss. The dialogue and action read almost as if written by numbers from a "how to write a mystery" correspondence course.

I'm disappointed; the first mystery was so well-crafted and smart that Abbott stood fair to be a new star in the hard-boiled business. This derivitive effort did not impress. I see on Amazon there is a new addition to Abbot's oeuvre (The Song Is You: A Novel); I'll give her one more chance.