"Word for word, pound for pound, Megan Abbott delivers more than any writer I know. Her influences appear to range from Hollywood Babylon to Theodore Dreiser, but her work transcends pastiche and homage. Bury Me Deep extends an already jaw-dropping winning streak, showcasing Abbott's gorgeous prose and clear-eyed empathy. She is simply one of the most exciting and original voices of her generation." -- Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know
Description
From the “reigning crown princess of noir” (Booklist) and Edgar Award–winning author of You Will Know Me comes a story of jealousy, illicit sex, shifting loyalties, and dark perversions of power in a reimagined Depression-era Phoenix, Arizona.
In October 1931, a station agent found two large trunks abandoned in Los Angeles’s Southern Pacific Station. What he found inside ignited one of the most scandalous tabloid sensations of the decade.
Inspired by this notorious true crime, Bury Me Deep tells the story of Marion Seeley, a young woman abandoned in Phoenix by her doctor husband. At the medical clinic where she finds a job, Marion becomes fast friends with Louise, a vivacious nurse, and her roommate, Ginny, a tubercular blonde. Before long, the demure Marion is swept up in the exuberant life of the girls, who supplement their scant income by entertaining the town’s most powerful men with wild parties. At one of these events, Marion meets—and falls hard for—the charming Joe Lanigan, a local rogue and politician on the rise, whose ties to all three women bring events to a dangerous collision.
A story born of Jazz Age decadence and Depression-era desperation, Bury Me Deep—with its hothouse of jealousy, illicit sex, and shifting loyalties—is a timeless portrait of the dark side of desire and the glimmer of redemption.
Reviews
"Working once more...from a true crime... Edgar-winner Abbott brings the era to life...Her nearly stream-of-consciousness narration is direct and powerful...her prose carries an urgency that brings hard-boiled crime fiction kicking and screaming into the modern age. Abbott takes readers on a wild thrill ride with an utterly believable and strangely sympathetic heroine." -- Kirkus, Starred Review
"In [Bury Me Deep] Abbott turns the stuff of sensational confession magazines into a rich meditation on the unclouded depths of the soul." -- Carl Rosen, New York magazine
"[F]abulous characters, delectable plotting, a unique story and a steamy yet gossamer setting....A stunning work of fiction, it is Abbott's love for her central character that makes Bury Me Deep so accessible and so far away at the same time. Imagine Hammett wrote Daisy Buchanan and not Fitzgerald. And you are Gatsby... so close and yet so far away. This is Bury Me Deep." -- Ruth Jordan, Crimespree