A Kiss Before Dying, by Ira Levin
A classic noir novel by the author of Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives.
A handsome young sociopathic decides to set himself up by romancing and marrying a young woman with a rich father; unfortunately, this plan depends on him not getting her pregnant until after they’re safely married. When he gets her pregnant before she’s even told her father he exists, he has only two choices: abortion or murder. The former proves difficult…
That’s just the first third of this perfect little thriller, which has a great narrative voice and a plot with the intricacy and neatness of an expensive pocket watch. It has a number of plot twists, several of which are genuinely surprising and which I have not seen imitated before. It’s less dated than it is a snapshot in time, and a quite atmospheric one at that. I read it in an evening, which I recommend as it’s short and also the sort of book where every little detail is going to turn out to be relevant.
This has been filmed twice; please don’t spoil me for how the movies changed things, as I either haven’t seen them or don’t remember them, and now I want to see them.
I particularly enjoyed the revelation of who Bud Corliss was and how neatly that was set up, the bit where you know the narrator has to be one of two men but you have no idea which, the schadenfreude and “how’s he going to get out of this?” of his panic after mailing a fake suicide note and then discovering his murder victim has failed to actually die, the sheer chutzpah of him methodically going after all three sisters, and the ending where the incident with the Japanese soldier that was mentioned on the very first page comes full circle, with him stepping into his very first victim’s shoes.
A Kiss Before Dying
Crossposted to https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2230033.html. Comment here or there.
A handsome young sociopathic decides to set himself up by romancing and marrying a young woman with a rich father; unfortunately, this plan depends on him not getting her pregnant until after they’re safely married. When he gets her pregnant before she’s even told her father he exists, he has only two choices: abortion or murder. The former proves difficult…
That’s just the first third of this perfect little thriller, which has a great narrative voice and a plot with the intricacy and neatness of an expensive pocket watch. It has a number of plot twists, several of which are genuinely surprising and which I have not seen imitated before. It’s less dated than it is a snapshot in time, and a quite atmospheric one at that. I read it in an evening, which I recommend as it’s short and also the sort of book where every little detail is going to turn out to be relevant.
This has been filmed twice; please don’t spoil me for how the movies changed things, as I either haven’t seen them or don’t remember them, and now I want to see them.
I particularly enjoyed the revelation of who Bud Corliss was and how neatly that was set up, the bit where you know the narrator has to be one of two men but you have no idea which, the schadenfreude and “how’s he going to get out of this?” of his panic after mailing a fake suicide note and then discovering his murder victim has failed to actually die, the sheer chutzpah of him methodically going after all three sisters, and the ending where the incident with the Japanese soldier that was mentioned on the very first page comes full circle, with him stepping into his very first victim’s shoes.
A Kiss Before Dying
Crossposted to https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2230033.html. Comment here or there.