I've been praising this book everywhere I can for the past year. One of the best things I have read in a very, very long time. Excellent beyond words. She has the perfect voice, the perfect pitch, the perfect delivery. For an old Pulp Era hound like myself, this is beautiiful music from a new master. Abbott is my new fave to rave. ( )

Wow. This book has the emotional impact of a much weightier work, in the sense that its themes are timeless and the prose impact is at an incredibly high per-word ratio. Beat that, Updike, or as every review probably suggests, Chandler or Carver. But this amazing coup is hung on a classic noir frame: mentor/neophyte, clean-up killing, payment in full and then redemption.

I had no idea I'd enjoy noir so much, but I think it's the moral ambiguity that appeals most to me. Turning the whole thing on its head by telling it through women makes it possible, it seems to me, to go even deeper into the dark heart of things. When Gloria's mask is lifted, what's inside is more complex, and burns hotter, than I think it would in a man. And the dance between the women is more treacherous because it means more to a woman to betray, or to kill, or to lose. At least, MA can make it seem so.

Speaking of what's between the women: there is a raw sexual tension there that is every bit as dramatic as the narrator's longing for Vic. Occasionally there's a mother-daughter vibe; certainly there's lots of mentor stuff, but the women are entwined in a dance whose pulse, to me, seemed unmistakeably sexual. Consider these lines:
"She turned me out and you never forget the one who turns you out."
"I knew it had all been headed toward this from the minute she set her hooks in me."
Well, it certainly makes for a barn-burner; couldn't stop reading the thing.

But the relationship with Vic was plenty hot too. MA may have pulled off the best description of want that I have ever read. Again with the lines (and they are *all* that good):
"His hands tore me to ribbons and left me that way...let's face it, he broke me because I was begging to be broke"
[after he betrays her:] "I want to say I regret it but I don't, not even now. Not one dirty thing. I loved them all."

Period detail isn't my forte but it seemed to all be there, and I appreciated that through context I actually understood how all the rackets were played. Vivid (but terse - MA's genius is creating entire pictures from just a few words) descriptions of the casinos, clubs, alleys etc. that make up that world.

My one quibble is that, less than half way through the book, I couldn't understand what bound her to Vic. Vic was so odious but more importantly he was WEAK and it is unimagineable that she would stay with him. I tried hard to understand how her character would be drawn to his hellbent loserism, that it might translate to some sort of idealism or even, if you stretch it, innocence...but it just didn't work for me. There needed to be some way to paint her longing so that the reader saw what she saw and said "ah, I get it."

Looking forward to reading MA's other 2 books. ( )

Very entertaining. ( )