The Song is You

Since I couldn't lay my hands on a promo copy I actually had to buy The Song is You, the Megan Abbott mystery I had read so much about. (What can I say? When you sleep with a book buyer you wake up with books-I'm accustomed to having my reading needs satisfied for free.)

The Song is You is the story of Hollywood's "other Dahila", Jean Spangler, who went missing in 1949. Though various theories were floated-botched back alley abortion, Mob ties-the mystery of her disappearance has never been solved. That leaves the field wide open for fiction-apparently there's another Spangler book in the works as well.

Abbot's book introduces us to Gil "Hop" Hopkins, a studio publicity man whose skill at publicityese and lack of personal scruples makes him a misbehaving star's morning after best friend. For Hop, the Spangler mess just won't go away until, in fine noir tradition, he must solve the mystery or get dragged down by it.

The Song is You is trashy, squalid and sordid. It's LA Confidential without the cops, The Black Dahlia without the body. It will make you crave a shower like too many page turns of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon. In short, I thought it a terrific book.