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Feb 08, 2012

karen rated it:

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 More...

65 comments like (49 people liked it)

Jun 16, 2011

Dan rated it:

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 More...

6 comments like (17 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2008

Andy rated it:

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. Dou More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 06, 2009

Scooter rated it:

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 doctrin More...

0 comments like

Nov 16, 2009

Travis rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2011

Alecia rated it:

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 sh More...

0 comments like

Aug 03, 2011

F.R. rated it:

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 nov More...

7 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2011

Steve rated it:

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 consideri More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Feb 24, 2011

Eddie rated it:

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...

0 comments like

Dec 28, 2009

Judith rated it:

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 e More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2011

jennifer rated it:

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 substitu More...

0 comments like

Dec 23, 2010

Sun rated it:

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, More...

0 comments like

Nov 06, 2011

Greg rated it:

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 More...

1 comment like (17 people liked it)

Aug 22, 2011

Tonya rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Jan 18, 2012

Dayna rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Jul 09, 2011

Adrian rated it:

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...

0 comments like

Jul 09, 2011

FittenTrim rated it:

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...

0 comments like

Jul 15, 2011

Jessica rated it:

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...

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Sep 29, 2011

Francis rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Jan 02, 2010

Vera rated it:

One of my rels is two years in to the most excellent taste in Christmas book gifts, even though I'm pretty sure he bought it for the cover, which he rightly surmised I would like on sight. I read this in one sitting on Boxing Day. It's about a lady gangster! And her protege! And a homme fatale, a gambler and wastrel. It is noir + Bechdel-passing + female leads and it is fully awesome. Short and punchy and uncompromisingly black. Do you like Chandler and Hammett and Leonard? You should give Abbo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 18, 2010

Chris rated it:

What a fantastic book; not one to start unless you're prepared to knock it out in one sitting. Abbott's writing style in this book is perfect for the time period, calling to mind the classic black and white noir films and stories from the 50s. The prose is stripped to the bones; she doesn't bother to lavish a bunch of description on familiar settings like casinos and race tracks -- she lets the reader fill in their own details. What a great book!

0 comments like

Apr 02, 2010

Ryan rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like

Feb 04, 2011

Johnny rated it:

While most people will immediately recognize Megan Abbott for her prose, which is everything that everyone says, beautiful, rhythmic and all her own, it is the story that holds it together. The not-so-simple relationship of two women and their navigation through the underworld.

The story has the feel of an old Gold Medal paperback, but the telling elevates it beyond that.

Well-paced and original, a very fun read.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 22, 2009

Bob rated it:

With Caught Stealing, another book read for a future class. Great voice - vintage set up, but a truly engrossing tale of a woman's descent into the dark side of a seamy Las Vegas mid 50s setting. Lots of booze, sexual longing, gun play, and double-crossings as the novel develops. Strong writing throughout, and the novel builds very nicely. Starts out simmering and slow and advances nicely.

0 comments like

Jan 14, 2012

bookczuk rated it:

Raymond Chandler, move over. There's a new girl in town. Megan Abbott's Queenpin dives into that shadowy underbelly of society where the gamblers and thugs live to bring us the story of a young club-girl (unnamed) who finds herself being groomed for greatness by the Queenpin herself in a mafia riddled strip. Here, the women are the central focus, and the men more peripheral. But make no mistake, the novel is both gritty and sharp, with violence and sexual tension thrown in. And what happens w More...

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Oct 20, 2011

Mairi rated it:

At this point, I can pretty safely say that I would read Megan Abbott writing the back of a cereal box. I constantly find myself torn between rushing to see what's next and going back and reading that turn of phrase one more time. Then that one. Maybe go back a whole paragraph. Or a page. The two-step she does with my brain has me practically reading the book twice by the time I hit the last page.

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May 03, 2011

Pete rated it:

Once again, Megan Abbott overcomes my unfortunate aversion to female authors. I started reading Ms. Abbott's work with "Bury Me Deep." This is now the second of her novels I've read, and it certainly won't be the last. This is hard-boiled crime fiction done right. Rough, dirty, and fast.

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Feb 01, 2010

Mark rated it:

Perfect. Great writing that just happens to be crime genre fiction. Written with great style and economy. Susfenseful, lurid, violent, darkly humorous, completely mesmerizing. Read BURY ME DEEP and liked the writing a tenny bit more than the story. This is a perfect match. Loved it!

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Oct 12, 2010

Vicki rated it:

I read this book and the whole time I was seeing the scenes illustrated classic-comic-book style in my head. Jessica Rabbit and Catwoman and bright vermillion splashes of blood and that closeup of the villain's face when she realizes she's been double-crossed. Abbott is addictive!

0 comments like

Dec 03, 2011

Rex rated it:

This is my third Megan Abbott book, and I think I liked this one the best so far. It is less ambitious than the previous two, and I think that actually works in its favor. It's stream-lined and hard-boiled, like a good James M. Cain book.

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