Miss Melville Regrets

I re-read this comedy/thriller of the 1980s and I loved it even more than I did when I was a young person. This novel is drenched to its core in '80s New York, and because it's so well-written, it's fascinating rather than dated because everything is explained properly. Young people will be able to understand what's going on when, for example, Miss Melville gets on the bus and drops her coins in the box and gets a paper transfer from the driver. Here is the New York of Crazy Eddie, rich people clipping coupons, and Central Park being too dangerous to walk in.

The main character Miss Melville is an artist living in genteel poverty in her rent-controlled apartment, but now the building is going co-op and she can't afford to buy her show more apartment. The author describes gentrification very vividly as "the colonial juggernaut." Through a series of strange mischances, Miss Melville first becomes an established party crasher and then begins a lucrative new career as an assassin. But she only murders awful people who deserve it. Miss Melville is a wonderful character because although she's snobbish and old-fashioned, she is great at shooting people and has a lot of plain common sense. For example, when her headmistress cousin complains that one of the parents at her school has had a "sex change," Miss Melville phlegmatically tells her, "Things like that are happening all over the world." Miss Melville also can't understand the strange "downtown" young artists, but she feels some sense of kinship with them. I have never read the other books in this series--I didn't even know it was a series--but I'm looking forward to it now. show less

Susan Melville grew up the privileged, wealthy daughter of New York blue-bloods, assured of her comfortable place in Society. But it's the 1980s, and the city has changed since Wharton's era. The Melville money is gone and Susan's rent-controlled apartment is being sold out from under her to form condos. In despair, she sneaks into a party with the object of committing suicide. But as she pulls her father's gun from her purse, she questions why she should die and the unscrupulous businessman who bought her building should live. Filled with righteous indignation, she shoots him.

To her surprise, she is hustled out of the room by a young man before anyone even realizes a murder has occurred. He badgers her to tell him who hired her; she show more is amazed to discover that he is an assassin, and he assumes she is as well. And thus begins Miss Melville's career as a hired killer. No one notices a middle-aged woman in slightly shabby clothes, and years of recreational shooting have given her fantastic aim. Her self-assurred poise and wealthy connections give her just the edge she needs. And to her pleasure, her experiences as an assassin make the many little indignities and annoyances of her former life laughably managable.

But then she starts to wonder if perhaps, she has gotten just a little trigger happy. And besides, she wants to be an artist, not a killer...

Miss Melville is sensible, pragmatic, and extremely snobby in a ladylike sort of way. Her supporting characters are uniquely dotty (if not particularly believable). And 1908s New York is presented with flair and not a little bit of artistic license. A fast, fun read. show less

Apparently suffering from acute nostalgia, I have lately found myself remembering books last read thirty years ago, and thinking of them fondly, and wondering were they really that good?

Yes.

Susan Melville is a middle-aged artist and Manhattan blueblood, without a job, without a fortune, in a rent-controlled apartment going coop with nothing left to sell and no hope. So she takes the only reasonable offer she's received. And now she kills bad people. Only bad people. Very bad people.

It's a comedy of manners with a charming heroine and a marvelous ending. And of course I enjoy it, now that I am also a woman of a certain age. Where Prizzi's Honor or Get Shorty went for a certain cool style, Miss Melville evokes a traditional vibe that show more would still feel at home in Southern Living.

A fun start to my Halloween reading.

Edited to add: Murder Most Foul, indeed show less

Someone recommended this series to me, and I have to say that this book was interesting and amusing and I will probably try the next one. Miss Melville is smart - although the premise is definitely one that requires suspending disbelief.