A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

 

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin

published 1953

 

She was beautiful. Her suit was dark green , with a cluster of white silk sparkling at the throat. Her shoes and purse were brown alligator, and there was a froth of dark green veil floating in her feathery golden hair.

 

Many of us are tired of the endless emphasis on ‘twists’ in modern crime fiction: it’s a selling point, and every book must have one. If you have read a lot of books, not many twists will truly surprise you, and if you know you are expecting one, then you are ready for it, it loses the capacity to surprise, and is ultimately disappointing.

Perhaps we need another term for the good ones – Stephen King (below) describes the key moment in this book, A Kiss Before Dying, as a bombshell, so maybe that… It is certainly not to be compared with modern twist-thrillers: it is truly in a class of its own.

It is a book and a half, it really is. I have read it several times over the past 30 years, and it still works its magic, even though I know its tricks, and it is even more impressive that it was Levin’s first novel.

A Kiss Before Dying has featured on the blog before as having one of the best twists in crime fiction. That moment, the one that makes your mouth fall open, is less than two-thirds of the way through – but separately the book has a memorable final couple of pages, and final line. It is an extraordinary book – cold and clear and maybe heartless, but incredibly clever. It is short, and fits a lot in, and has a driving force through its three parts, each called after one of a family of sisters.

That’s why it’s still a great read when you know what’s going on.

It also has a great piece of cluing and detection in it, where a young woman works out what was going on in her sister’s life.

As trailed earlier, Stephen King has described very well what is so clever about the book, according to Wikipedia: ‘[The] bombshell is neatly tucked away about one hundred pages * into the story. If you should happen upon this moment while thumbing randomly through the book, it means nothing to you. If you have read everything faithfully up to that point, it means ... everything.’

*(More than 100 pages in my edition.)

Very good classification.

Ira Levin wrote some very successful mid-20^th-century fiction – Rosemary’s Baby, Boys from Brazil, and The Stepford Wives – which actually has made a major and useful addition to the language. (who knew that what 1970s women needed was a phrase to describe being worryingly compliant? Though of course the phrase is only used as a negative or an insult – ‘she’s a Stepford Wife, I’m not’). He also wrote the play Deathtrap, much loved among crime fiction aficionados.

But if I had to bet, I would say it is A Kiss Before Dying that will live on.

Picture from the Clover Vintage Tumbler.