Queenpin
A young woman,
hired to keep the books at a down-at-the-heels nightclub, is taken
under the wing of the infamous Gloria Denton, a mob luminary who
reigned during the Golden Era of Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano.
Before she knows it, she's ushered into a glittering demimonde of
late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and
big, big money.
Click here to read an excerpt
Queenpin
tour dates
"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."
—Frank
Sennett, Booklist
"Faster than a blue-haired octogenarian
losing her retirement money on the Vegas slots and as calloused as a
gravedigger's hands, Queenpin is pure pulp noir; a gloriously
brutal and seductive story that—like
the dysfunctional relationship between the novel's young female
protagonist and her grifter lover—
roughs you up a little and not only makes you like it but leaves you
wanting more."
—Paul
Goat Allen, Chicago Tribune
"Edgar-finalist Abbott delivers a sharp,
slender, hardboiled tale of a protégé’s schooling by a notorious,
been-there-done-that moll. . . . 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."
—Publishers
Weekly
"If Megan Abbott writes half a dozen more books as good as her first
three ("Die a Little" and "The Song Is You" are period-piece
perfection), she will claim the throne as the finest prose stylist
in crime fiction since Raymond Chandler. This novella, a distinctly
distaff homage to the lurid glories of 1950s paperbacks, is a
splendidly simple but extravagantly sensual noir coming-of-age story
about a young woman's dangerous apprenticeship to a female gangster.
Imagine Hayley Mills possessed by Jim Thompson."
—Eddie
Muller, San Francisco Chronicle
"Acts of stunning brutality, all retold
in the narrator's hipster voice, reveal the ugliness behind the
glitz as a little girl grows up. Abbott produces another stunning,
hardboiled heroine."
—Kirkus
Review
"A new star is rising in the
midnight sky of noir fiction, and her name is Megan Abbott.
With Queenpin Abbott has established herself solidly in the
tradition of her influences: James Ellroy, James M. Cain and Raymond
Chandler. If Cain boiled down Ellroy’s complicated mixture of
people, places and themes, dashed in his trademark cynicism and
moral ambiguity, and filtered the brew with Chandler’s masterful use
of slang and dialogue, the result might have the flavor of Abbott’s
fiction."
—Timothy
J. Lockhart, The Virginian-Pilot
Dig
Megan Abbott's
Queenpin,
so chock-full of tough talk and high-stakes thrills that it hums. In
an unnamed city and uncertain period, an ambitious young dame (I use
the word advisedly) falls in with an aging but formidable underworld
figure, with satisfyingly twisted results.
—Adam
Woog, The Seattle Times
"In the sly and stylish Queenpin,
Megan Abbott gives a feminine spin to hard- boiled crime, crafting a
tale of grifters and their marks."
—Sandra
Kent, Boston Herald
"This book screams summer sizzle. Abbott
is a good writer with a gift for careening into character
development even as revs up the plot."
—John
Mark Eberhart, Kansas City Star
"[I]t’s the gorgeous descriptive
qualities of the narrator’s world view that pull the reader firmly
into her lair. Abbott is perhaps the eminent hardboiled writer
today, and she might be the logical heir apparent to Hammett and
Chandler."
—Anthony
Rainone, Lincoln Journal Star
"Abbott’s fascinating exploration of the
narrator’s psyche keeps the pages turning, and there’s a savage
inevitability here, a magnet pull towards destruction. . . .
Abbott’s wonderfully amoral ending does not disappoint, and those of
us who love noir fiction recognize that Abbott is an exciting new
voice for this genre."
—Guy
Savage, Mostly Fiction.com
Megan Abbott was born in the wrong time,
since she writes like she was a compatriot of the Chandlers and
Hammetts of the world. With Queenpin, her third novel, she
shows no sign of slowing down in style or substance.
—Bruce
Grossman, Bookgasm.com
Abbott dishes up in her third novel
stiletto heels, pointed, deadly, and good over small distances,
leaving readers looking for more. This is All About Eve
pulped to a fare-thee-well à la Jim Thomson.
—Bob
Lunn, Library Journal, starred review
"A stunning achievement. With
Queenpin,
her third superb book, Megan Abbott proves beyond all
doubt she is the new Queen of Noir."
—Ken
Bruen, author of Priest
and American Skin
"Subtle,
seductive, stunningly violent, this perfectly executed hardboiled
tale of complex relationships between grifters is a stone-cold
classic."
—Allan
Guthrie, author of Hard Man (2007) and
Kiss Her Goodbye (2005)
"Classy, daring, and alluringly amoral,
Abbott's portrayal of a woman desperate for the 'good
life' illuminates the deep motives of a femme fatale, as she
chooses tough over soft and pleasure within pain in order to satisfy
her thrill-seeking personality in an era when opportunities are
scarce. A slick, murderous adventure with passion enough to draw any
reader inside."
—Vicki
Hendricks, author of Cruel Poetry and Miami Purity
"Megan Abbott's
Queenpin is one of the best noir novels I've read in years. I
felt like I was reading a great Gold Medal novel, from the heyday of
crime fiction, yet with an entirely fresh spin. It reminded me of
the best work of Cain and Chandler. I didn't read Queenpin, I
devoured it."
—Jason
Starr, author of The Follower
Included as one of four summer
page-turners by Melony Vance of Latitude 33 bookstore in Laguna
Beach, CA.
—Valerie
Takahama, Orange County Register
Included as one of three summer
picks by Bonnie Hearn Hill, author of Off the Record.
—Don
Mayhew, The Fresno
Bee
Read the
story from which
Queenpin derives in
Damn Near Dead,
the Edgar®-nominated
anthology.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: June 2007
ISBN-10: 1416534288
Price:
$13.00
Preorder it or buy it in
June at one of these wonderful independent bookstores:
Poisoned Pen
The Black Orchid
Murder by the Book
Murder on the Beach
Dead End Books
Partners and Crime
The Mystery
Bookstore
Mystery One Bookstore
Mysterious Bookshop
Mysteries to Die For
M Is for Mystery
Seattle Mystery Bookstore
Also available on Powells and other online book retailers, including
the
Amazon and
Barnes and Noble.
And
available as an e-book at retailers everywhere, including:
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