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52nd out of 308 books
—
202 voters
Queenpin
by
Megan Abbott (Goodreads Author)
By the author of Dare Me and The End of Everything
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. Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering...more
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. Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protégée the ropes, ushering her into a glittering...more
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
June 5th 2007
by Simon & Schuster
(first published January 1st 2007)
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grrrl-noir!
megan freaking abbott - i knew i wanted to read you for a reason! and before you ask - noooo this is most definitely not YA, despite my vow to only read YA until the paper is due. but greg borrowed this from the library, and i really wanted to read it, so i borrowed it from him and here we are. do not give this to a teenage girl. it would be disastrous.
this book is old school noir written with a contemporary sensibility: all the trappings are there in the lingo and the characters' cos...more
megan freaking abbott - i knew i wanted to read you for a reason! and before you ask - noooo this is most definitely not YA, despite my vow to only read YA until the paper is due. but greg borrowed this from the library, and i really wanted to read it, so i borrowed it from him and here we are. do not give this to a teenage girl. it would be disastrous.
this book is old school noir written with a contemporary sensibility: all the trappings are there in the lingo and the characters' cos...more
A young woman working as an accountant at a nightclub is taken under the wing of Gloria Denton, a cunning and ruthless mob woman. While Gloria teaches her the ropes, she falls in love with a gambler named Vic. Vic's heavily in debt and has a plan: rip off Gloria Denton!
Megan Abbott knows how to noir it up with the best of them. Queenpin is a twisting tale with a lot of double dealing. The nameless protagonist goes from being an accountant to a runner and beyond. Once the attempt to rip Gloria of...more
Megan Abbott knows how to noir it up with the best of them. Queenpin is a twisting tale with a lot of double dealing. The nameless protagonist goes from being an accountant to a runner and beyond. Once the attempt to rip Gloria of...more
23 likes · like · see review
Damn, what a book. If Megan Abbott isn't the hottest noir author alive then nobody is. A fried old mafia cougar takes on some wet-nosed club girl and teaches her the ropes of grifting. The little chippie's an eager student in crime until she falls for a low-life gambler.
Sample line: "One night, he ripped my $350 faille day suit from collar to skirt in one long tear. Fuck me, I was in love."
The hag blows her cool by hacking him to death with a letter opener. Double cross upon double cross unfolds...more
Sample line: "One night, he ripped my $350 faille day suit from collar to skirt in one long tear. Fuck me, I was in love."
The hag blows her cool by hacking him to death with a letter opener. Double cross upon double cross unfolds...more
5 likes · like · see review
This is the second book I’ve read by Megan Abbott, and she can go ahead and sign me up as member of her fan club.
Set back in the good old days when people still smoked and took a shot a rye every twenty minutes, the unnamed narrator is a young woman who is keeping the books for a small time shady night club. After she helps the owners do some creative Enron-style accounting, she comes to the attention of Gloria Denton.
Gloria is an aging but gorgeous woman who helps manage the rackets in town, an...more
Set back in the good old days when people still smoked and took a shot a rye every twenty minutes, the unnamed narrator is a young woman who is keeping the books for a small time shady night club. After she helps the owners do some creative Enron-style accounting, she comes to the attention of Gloria Denton.
Gloria is an aging but gorgeous woman who helps manage the rackets in town, an...more
17 likes · like · see review
Two books in to Megan Abbott territory and I think I'm in love. Her stuff feels comfortable, like an old friend is chatting away non-stop but instead of boyfriends and work and kids this friend is casually telling you about the guy she killed or how the Grande Dame of organised crime in your town has taken her under her wing, pulling no punches along the way in terms of explicit description of severed arteries and rough sex.
How can you not love that?
As I said after Die a Little recently, I could...more
How can you not love that?
As I said after Die a Little recently, I could...more
Man, I just... don't know. I felt like I was reading this as some sort of self-conscious exercise in irony. That, or that I was preparing for an interview with Diablo Cody.
I understand that I occupy this space that makes it kind of impossible for me to be hip: anxiety-prone, A-type, born-again, childless, married, un-ambitious homebody. And nobody will ever think that I am cool again. I get that. It's fine. But it has left me singularly impatient with the whole High Fidelity doctrine that what...more
I understand that I occupy this space that makes it kind of impossible for me to be hip: anxiety-prone, A-type, born-again, childless, married, un-ambitious homebody. And nobody will ever think that I am cool again. I get that. It's fine. But it has left me singularly impatient with the whole High Fidelity doctrine that what...more
I don't know if reading, briefly, the reviews of others helps or hurts my review. One thing I found that I didn't like was dismissing Megan Abbott, the author, or labeling her because she is a woman. Yes she is female and yes she is crime writer. She isn't good because she is a woman and she isn't good for a woman and she doesn't write woman crime. She is a good writer that can pull experiences and ideas based around being a woman, a human, and creative. What I liked most about Queenpin and Mega...more
This is the third Megan Abbott book I've read, and all I can say is...keep 'em coming. Her period noir novels have a hard-boiled narration by a woman in a world usually populated by men. Women are usually the peripheral characters, but not in these books. Here the women are the stars of this down and dirty show, and the men are peripheral. The dialogue is snappy and the "broads" are tough. The young woman who is narrating this story is taken under the wing of Gloria Denton, a former showgirl (wi...more
Megan Abbott’s thing is 1950’s noirs with a female twist, and this is the best one I’ve read so far. A young woman is taken under the wing of an older, experienced dame and taught the ropes in making pick-ups from casinos and operating smoothly in a tough world. Within weeks she’s addicted to the seedy thrills and the danger of it all, and absolutely worships her mentor, but then she meets the wrong man...
Abbott’s fiddling with the gender of the form really pays dividends in this novel. We’re of...more
Abbott’s fiddling with the gender of the form really pays dividends in this novel. We’re of...more
7 likes · like · see review
Very well done noir set in the fifties, with an unnamed bad girl learning the criminal ropes under the tutelage of Gloria Denton, the "Queenpin." To be honest, other than making some deliveries to various shady places, I was never all that sure just what the younger woman was doing. But that's entirely secondary, since what's good about this novel is its razor sharp dialogue, a great cast of noirish characters, and its period atmosphere. So good in fact that earlier on I was considering giving t...more
8 likes · like · see review
I picked up this book in my absolute favorite place in the world, the library. I browse and browse the library just looking for interesting books to read or just to stare and awe at all the books begging to be read. I'm like a really horny dude in a strip-club, but just with libraries. I dream of meeting some sexy=ass woman in a library and her, too, the library, being her favorite place to go. I dream of marrying a chick who loves the library just as much as me and even possibly can write almos...more
Once again, i met up with Ms Abbott...and was TKOd right out of the box....but it didn't hurt, not one bit. The narrative tension...the period detail..the cold-as-ice women and wastrel men...the broken bones...the blood..the mayhem...the "heat"....are all here in spades. Three times lucky, i guess.
A crash course in Grifting 101, under the tutelage of the legendary Gloria Denton, leaves our wide-eyed heroine bewitched, bothered, and bewildered...and craving the ever-elusive MORE. Things go seriou...more
Working the accounts part-time for a strip club while attending school, a young woman is picked out for a job offer by the local collector, the queenpin, a polished and dangerous older woman who's been working the racket a few decades and needs a protege. The younger woman is eager to learn how to be as clever, successful and wealthy as her mentor, even though she realizes that once in, there's little chance of getting out.
This isn't just a crime story with female characters substituting for the...more
This isn't just a crime story with female characters substituting for the...more
The cover design and image of Queenpin clearly shows that the publishers would like it to fall into the "classic noir" category. The plot is fairly apparent from the first chapter, so I won't bother summarising it, but it does involve a first-class femme fatale.
Megan Abbott's style flip flops between jaw-dropping and irritating. After the first chapter, I picked up a pen and began editing her sentences. (She overused the subjunctive, created distance rather than immediacy, and tended to repetit...more
Megan Abbott's style flip flops between jaw-dropping and irritating. After the first chapter, I picked up a pen and began editing her sentences. (She overused the subjunctive, created distance rather than immediacy, and tended to repetit...more
This has been one of the stand-outs in my recent foray into crime fiction. There is nothing necessarily about it this book that really stands out, it's just so smoothly executed that it was a pleasure to read. There was nothing cringe inducing here, the dialogue was stylized enough to hark back to the hard-boiled / noir of the 40's / 50's without falling into parody or made to feel strained. Even though I've read a slew of crime novels lately, and had read some before this past month I still don...more
19 likes · like · see review
Abbott’s writing is in the best traditions of noir – dark, edgy, atmospheric, lyrical. The prose is excellent, the narrative taut, and the dialogue snappy. Queenpin is essentially an in-depth character study of two women and their evolving relationship, and Abbott excels at bringing both women fully to life and one is drawn fully into their worlds. My only quibble is that the book really fails to broaden out beyond the master and apprentice relationship to further contextualise them in the world...more
Abbott has recently become one of my new favorite authors with this being my third book I've read by her. As someone in love with noir, I can understand how kitschy it may be from time the time. But when you have a way with words that allow you to enter into those smoky bar rooms, those seedy motels, and walking dark slick streets alone, you know your're in the right business. Abbott's language is rich and seductive. You can taste the gin on every rough man, on every red-pouted mouth woman.
Exce...more
Exce...more
Megan Abbott writes dialogue that makes me squee like a Justin Bieber fangirl. Fast, witty, cutting, and true to the time period she writes of.
I love reading her characters’ words, they fill my head with such brilliant images and her characters are real and tactile to her readers. I cannot do her justice with my own words because I am in such awe of her writing.
Queenpin is a book about a mentor and her protégé, the trust and distrust that relationship can generate and all the sordid things a per...more
I love reading her characters’ words, they fill my head with such brilliant images and her characters are real and tactile to her readers. I cannot do her justice with my own words because I am in such awe of her writing.
Queenpin is a book about a mentor and her protégé, the trust and distrust that relationship can generate and all the sordid things a per...more
QUEENPIN was my first introduction to Megan Abbott, based on a Kemper review of said author, not said novel, but it certainly won’t be my last. The voice carried me like a tumbleweed in the middle of New Mexico. It sang like a blue canary in the middle of spring. It had heart, promise…Well, you get the idea.
The unnamed narrator proved every bit as powerful as she did mysterious. She jumped up on stage, fully exposed, front and center, with hardly a stitch on her, and proceeded to take on all com...more
The unnamed narrator proved every bit as powerful as she did mysterious. She jumped up on stage, fully exposed, front and center, with hardly a stitch on her, and proceeded to take on all com...more
4 likes · like · see review
Megan Abbott's name got tossed around in my Noir Fiction class awhile back, but I never got around to picking up any of her stuff. I'm glad I finally got a chance to read one of her titles, and I will definitely be checking out her other books.
I just...I just loves me some Noir-style gangsta lingo. Especially when a tiny lady is slingin' it around. Also, lesbian subtext, even if I'm imagining it (although, it wouldn't have been a great out-of-nowhere leap to have Gloria bed this newb, right? She...more
I just...I just loves me some Noir-style gangsta lingo. Especially when a tiny lady is slingin' it around. Also, lesbian subtext, even if I'm imagining it (although, it wouldn't have been a great out-of-nowhere leap to have Gloria bed this newb, right? She...more
I picked up this book after reading a great review from an incredibly reliable source here on Goodreads. I'm really glad I did. This book is unbelievably good. Megan Abbott's prose is as hardboiled as it gets yet highly crafted so that each sentence reads with just the right amount of punch. The story has all the elements of surprise, inevitability, and more profound notions of character you could ever want from a novel. There were more than a few scenes in Queenpin that made me turn to whoever...more
Abbott has been showered with critical praise... and living in the city that made noir famous; I wanted to jump in with both feet. Queenpin is an interesting read because the narrator isn't a salty private eye or a damsal in distress -- instead she's a rather bright, lower-middle class coed who longs to get in on a piece of the action; and become a classy, lady mobster like her boss. But while the wonderful details and dialogue are spot-on, I must admit that I wasn't drawn into the story. Also w...more
Loved this book so much -- Megan Abbott has instantly becomes one of my new favourite authors whose work I will devour greedily. A period hardboiled crime written from the POV -- and around the lives -- of female characters, and exquisitely done. The prose is fast and clean, the voice believable and engaging, and the characters beautifully complex. Looking forward to reading the other Abbot books on my shelf.
For a more in depth discussion of Queenpin, please listen to my podcast, The Writer and...more
For a more in depth discussion of Queenpin, please listen to my podcast, The Writer and...more
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. Notoriously cunning and ruthless, Gloria shows her eager young protegee the ropes, ushering her into a glittering demimonde of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlors, inside heists, and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet - as long as she doesn't take any chances, l...more
Queenpin by Megan Abbott is a 1940s crime noir novel that is a fun, entertaining read. It was cool and aloof yet abrasive and biting. As I read the book I was transported back to the underbelly of the big city in the '40s or at least a camp/imagined version of how it was or, maybe, should have been. The novel is dichotomic in nature. The tone of the novel is both poised and dangerous all at once. The settings are rough and yet polished, the characters have massive flaws, but keep their composure...more
After reading this book I saw Megan Abbott at a mystery writer's book signing for my local library association. She seemed like such a nice, shy, giggly kind of girl with maybe just a touch of impishness in her big sympathetic eyes.
Which is kind of a contrast...
Cause, judging by her writing, she strikes me as the kind of girl who when young may have found her Dad's collection of magazines and then snuck out later that night with her flashlight after insuring the batteries were fresh.
However, th...more
Which is kind of a contrast...
Cause, judging by her writing, she strikes me as the kind of girl who when young may have found her Dad's collection of magazines and then snuck out later that night with her flashlight after insuring the batteries were fresh.
However, th...more
Jesus this book was pretty freaking good in the end. Once again I was soooooo bored in the beginning of this book as Abbott once again took her sweet time getting the story going. But when the story got going? Ho Lee Shit can she write. I wish on a stack of wish-bibles or whatever that she would get to the goddamned point early on in a book so that I could just groove on the awesomeness that is Megan Abbott. When she gets a head of steam she is about the best thing going in retro noir fiction. I...more
6 likes · like · see review
A bunch of old time jargon compacted into a novel...And not the good kind either...
Quotes from Queenpin that I wanted to burn:
"She knew everybody and everybody knew her and she plucked me out of that two-bit hootchy-kootch and put me on a big stage, footlights up my dress (p.6)
""I wanted to take it in, her whole set up. The half moon manicured nails, pale green suit and hat, the pearl-ring brooch. Class. No gun moll, she. (p.7)
"Sure, I left feeling like I'd won something big, slid out from some...more
Quotes from Queenpin that I wanted to burn:
"She knew everybody and everybody knew her and she plucked me out of that two-bit hootchy-kootch and put me on a big stage, footlights up my dress (p.6)
""I wanted to take it in, her whole set up. The half moon manicured nails, pale green suit and hat, the pearl-ring brooch. Class. No gun moll, she. (p.7)
"Sure, I left feeling like I'd won something big, slid out from some...more
Dec 17, 2012
Trixie Fontaine
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2012-books-consumed,
i-want-more-like-these
Okay, maybe not five stars PERFECT, but five stars AWESOME! This is my first Megan Abbott. I loved how hot the sex was without anything explicit being said at all, and of course loved that the main characters are ambitious, confident women in a genre I enjoy. The ending was kind of boring / hard to believe there wasn't more of a violent or just scarier climax (but that was also a relief) and I wanted a little more of the development of the women's relationship / how Gloria mentored her exactly.
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with noir. I love the feel and pacing of it, and the intrigue and characterization. Part of this is, no doubt, because I grew up reading comic books, and noir literature comes out of the same tradition of pulp fiction that the comics do.
At the same time, though, a lot of classic noir - Spillane, for example - is very much a product of its time, which is a polite way of saying that its full of troubling attitudes regarding sex, politics, and race, and whic...more
At the same time, though, a lot of classic noir - Spillane, for example - is very much a product of its time, which is a polite way of saying that its full of troubling attitudes regarding sex, politics, and race, and whic...more
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Megan Abbott is the Edgar® award-winning author of the novels The End of Everything Queenpin, The Song Is You, Die a Little, Bury Me Deep and her latest, Dare Me (July 2012).
Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Detroit Noir, Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year, Storyglossia, Queens Noir and The Spee...more
More about Megan Abbott...
Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Detroit Noir, Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year, Storyglossia, Queens Noir and The Spee...more
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“You have to decide who you are, little girl, she told me once. Once you know that, everyone else will too.”
—
3 people liked it
“If you didn't feel it on your body long after he'd left, was it really worth laying for him? I wanted to feel that.”
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2 people liked it
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Nov 30, 2011 02:33pm
Now I go watch Wall-E!!
Nov 30, 2011 03:01pm