ROB PIERCE - TOMMY SHAKES (2019)

Synopsis/blurb.....

Tommy Shakes is a career criminal, and not a very good one. He earned his name as a heroin addict. Now he’s just a drunk, drinking so much that he spends much of his time in bathrooms, exploding from one end or the other.

He’s in a marriage he wants to salvage. He convinces himself that his wife, Carla, will allow him to stay with her and their teenage son, Malik, if he can bring home enough money. She tells him that won’t do it, he needs to quit crime altogether, but Tommy gets a crack at a big heist and decides to pull the job.

The job is ripping off a popular restaurant that runs an illegal sports book in back. A lot of money gets paid out on football Sundays; the plan is to pull the robbery on Saturday night. The back room has armed guards but, according to Smallwood, Tommy’s contact on the job, there’s no gang protection.

Tommy recons the job and finds two problems: Smallwood’s plan will get them all killed or up on murder one, and one security guy works for a local gangster, Joey Lee. Tommy’s desperate for money and figures he can make his own plan. As to the gangster, there’s enough money that it’s worth the risk.

They pull the robbery but one gang member gets gun happy and it turns into a bloodbath, which includes killing Lee’s man. Now they’re wanted for murder, and the law is the least of their problems.

Praise for TOMMY SHAKES:

“With his pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, his knack for crisp pacing, and his unerring eye for what might be called the milieu of functional dissolution, Rob Pierce has revealed himself in story after story as a poet of the luckless, the bard of the misbegotten. In the hero of his latest and best, Tommy Shakes, he has found his Frankie Machine.” —David Corbett, award-winning author of The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday

Another cracking book from All Due Respect's stable and Rob Pierce, an author I've enjoyed previously; though it has been a while - Uncle Dust in 2017.

I do like a book where the main character is an outlaw, a man more interested in turning a dishonest buck, than making an honest one. Here we have Tommy. Tommy's health is poor, his marriage is failing and he has a son but no real relationship with him to speak of. He's out of the marital bed because of his drinking and attitude and while his wife seems almost ready to call time on their marriage he hasn't quite given up just yet.

One decent paying heist with a trusted crew can get everything back on track. Or so he reckons.

Bars, drinks, arguments, the settee as a bed, an awkward and embarassing bowel condition, a beat down for cash, a possible job, an introduction and a test, a takeover, recruitment, some urgent planning, a new girlfriend, some stepping on toes, green for go with red for danger ever present.

I found myself really invested in this tale. There's humour, gross-outs, action, violence, death and a fast-moving plot as a potential idea for a job, grows legs and wings and morphs from a plan to execution and an not entirely unexpected consequence.

Superb characters, great conversations and dialogue and scenes; meetings in bars, hotels, coffee shops, cars and stakeouts. At its heart is a desperate man, trying to rescue a marriage that half the time he isn't sure he wants to save. Ultimately he doesn't have the tools to change his behaviour - the excessive drinking, the criminality, the poor choice of companions and be the man his wife wants him to be.

It might have been a boring book if he had. My cup of tea this one.

4.5 from 5

A few more from Rob Pierce sit on the pile - Vern in the Heat, With the Right Enemies and The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet.

Read - April, 2020
Published - 2019
Page count - 248
Source - review copy received from Chris at the publishers
Format - Paperback

LAWRENCE BLOCK - BORDERLINE (1962)

Synopsis/blurb....

THE SCORCHING PULP NOVEL BY LAWRENCE BLOCK, AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 50 YEARS! On the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, five lives are about to intertwine — with fatal results. You'll meet MARTY: the professional gambler who rolls the dice on a night with... MEG: the bored divorcee who seeks excitement and finds... LILY: the beautiful hitchhiker lured into a live sex show by... CASSIE: the redhead with her own private agenda... and WEAVER: the madman, the killer with a straight razor in his pocket, on the run from the police and determined to go down swinging! This is MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block at his rawest and most visceral, a bloody, bawdy, brutal story of passion and punishment — and of lines that were never meant to be crossed. PLUS: Three of Block's rarest short stories from the pulps, mapping the border between sanity and depravity...

Another Audible outing with a book I've previously read about 6 years ago and whilst it didn't quite hit the same heights as the first time around - a 5 STAR read, it was still pretty damn good.

Sex, a professional gambler, cards, drinking to excess, a madman with murder and mutilation on his mind, an abandoned girlfriend turning tricks for lifts and participating in sex shows to earn a crust, her on stage partner - a lesbian who's falling deep for her, and another bored woman finding excitement and disappointment in the border towns of El Paso and Juarez.

Lots going on, quite a busy book, an interesting cast of characters, none of which are especially likeable, they're all selfish, all self serving and despite that motivation none of them especially seem particularly happy with the cards they've been dealt.

Quite a decent pace, as we switch from character to character and a swift violent climax which seemed to rush up on this reader.

4.5 from 5

Read - (listened to) April, 2020
Published - 1962
Page count - 256 (6 hrs 23 mins)
Source - Audible download code from the author's assistant
Format - Audible

-----------------------------------------------
* THOUGHTS FROM DECEMBER 2014 BELOW.....

My second 5 star read from December was Lawrence Block’s Borderline, a short novel written back in the early 60’s. I think I’d be entertained reading this guy’s shopping list.

Sometimes it’s hard to define what I like about books. This one ticked a lot of boxes though…..interesting characters, especially Marty our professional gambler and Lily our young hitchhiker, drifting south from a feckless boyfriend who had her turning tricks, to becoming a participant in one of the legendary Mexican stage shows. Our other characters, including our killer were slightly less interesting to me….still you can’t have 5 leads can you?

With the action unfolding in our border towns of El Paso and Juarez and our characters criss-crossing the divide between the two countries, setting was a massive plus for me also.

One of the main characters or drivers in the book was SEX. I’m no prude but I was surprised by the amount of it in this one. I think a lot of my previous exposure to the pulps has been mainly at the bash ‘em and beat ‘em end of the spectrum as opposed to the strip ‘em and screw ‘em end. Block does have a way with words though, and I’m sure my ears tinged pink as I read, feeling like a ring-side viewer at our live sex-show! You've got to love this guy.

With our characters, Block serves up their pasts and presents in surprisingly quick order. When they intersect and collide, sparks fly and without spoiling, it’s fair to say our climax doesn't see a happy end for most of our participants.

Borderline was short and kind of ended surprisingly abruptly – I’d forgotten the extra stories at the back of the book and was still expecting an inch of story judging by the number of un-thumbed pages still to come. Once I got my wits back, my verdict was – fantastic.

The 3 extra stories entertained as well. Perfect reading material for a grim December.

I'm definitely hoping to get back to more from Mr Block in 2015, picking up where I left off with Scudder..... somewhere around book 5 or 6.

5 from 5

I did get access (sort of) to an Audible version after responding to an offer on one of the author’s newsletters, unfortunately I was incapable of downloading the correct programme properly in order to listen to this. I went to my local library instead and borrowed.

BRIAN GARFIELD - CHECKPOINT CHARLIE (1981)

Synopsis/blurb.....

CHECKPOINT CHARLIE

He's fat. He's old. He's rumpled. He's conceited. He inhabits a violent world - the Cia - yet he is non-violent. He loves two things, and only two, in all the world: eating and practicing his trade. He is an international troubleshooter, and he's the best there is. Misfit CIA agent Charlie Dark waddles and struts and gloats his way through this excellent collection of stories by award-winning mystery writer Brian Garfield.

A book I've had on the TBR pile for a few years and one that I was reminded of after watching the film Hopscotch based on the Edgar winning novel of the same title by Garfield. Checkpoint Charlie is a collection of a dozen stories featuring Charlie Dark. There's also an interesting introduction to the book from the author outlining the origins of the stories and how some characters had to be renamed because of rights issues relating to the film. I think everything is restored to back to the author's original intention here.

We have...
Charlie's Story: An Introduction by the Author
Charlie's Game
Charlie's Shell Game
Checkpoint Charlie
Trust Charlie
Charlie's Vigorish
Challenge for Charlie
Charlie in Moscow
Charlie in the Tundra
Charlie's Dodge
Passport for Charlie
Charlie's Chase
Charlie's Last Caper

Spy craft, Russian foes - sometimes borderline allies, American foes, rogue agents, double crosses, information leaks, a hijacking, terrorists, political prisoners, exiles, trying to control hostile influences, retirement, the Mafia, a family member in trouble, globe-trotting..... Berlin, Venezuela, Australia, East Africa and a lot more.

Each and every time Charlie has a mission. Each and every time it seems success is highly improbable, each and every time the antipathy and mutual loathing and co-dependency of Charlie and his boss Myerson increases. They hate each other, but in a modernising CIA they are both anachronisms. If Dark is retired, Myerson will end up losing his position because Dark gets the results that keep him in a job. If Myerson retires, Charlie is out on his ear, because no other chief would have him working for them.

There's an over-riding story arc to the collection in that the hostility between Dark and Myerson increasingly escalates and in the last story explodes. I liked the dynamic of the pair. I enjoyed Charlie's refusal to resort to force or violence to solve any of the problems he faces. I like his imagination, his scheming, his planning and his continually coming up trumps. Some of the cases, almost have a locked room mystery feel to them with a near impossible solution before Dark delivers the desired outcome.

Overall a very entertaining collection.

4 from 5

I've enjoyed a few of Brian Garfield's books over the years.... Deathwish, Hopscotch, What of Terry Conniston?  and more recently The Hit and The Marksman. I'll be reading more from him in the future.

Read - April, 2020
Published - 1981
Page count - 280
Source - owned copy
Format - paperback


 

LAWRENCE BLOCK - SINNER MAN (1968)

Synopsis/blurb....

To escape punishment for a murder he didn’t mean to commit, insurance man Don Barshter has to take on a new identity: Nathaniel Crowley, ferocious up-and-comer in the New York mob. But can he find safety in the skin of another man…a worse man...a sinner man...?

Now appearing for the first time under Block’s real name!

Another audible outing with Lawrence Block a couple of years after reading the book for the first time. Originally written around 1960, and first published in 1968 as Savage Lover by Sheldon Lord, Hard Case Crime brought it back to the public in 2016.

What to say then..... an insurance man rows with his wife and accidentally kills her when the argument turns physical. Rather than face the consequences, he runs and reinvents himself in a smaller town, posing as a criminal sort.

Fairly soon he has money, power, prestige, a girlfriend and his guilty secret. Can a man outrun his past? Can a man outrun his past, twice?

Even though I could remember the outcome, I really enjoyed the second visit.

I liked the premise of the book, the dilemna our main character was faced with, his becoming of a new man, his ascent and his decisiveness when called for. I admired certain aspects of Nathaniel Crowley persona, but he has a stone for a heart. Superficially he has everything, in reality he has nothing. He's just passing time waiting for his secret to be exposed.

A cracking read/listen.

4.5 from 5

Read - (listened to) April, 2020
Published - 1968 (this edition 2016)
Page count - 240 (5 hrs 9 mins)
Source - Audible download code received from the author's assistant
Format - Audible

------------
*THOUGHTS FROM JANUARY 2018 BELOW...

An insurance man kills his wife accidentally and weighs up his options. Call the police and face the consequences - his life as he knows it is over, even if it's ruled accidental and not premeditated.
Or leave his old life and re-invent himself in a new town as a new man. With sketchy documents that won't stand too much initial scrutiny, he's going to have to work the dark side of the street and integrate himself into the criminal elements running his new town.

Option A and we don't have much of a story. Option B and away we go. Don Barshter becomes Nathaniel Crowley and rocks up in Buffalo. Strutting around town, dropping a few dollars here and there, beating a man in a bar fight and he's soon on the radar of the local cops and the guys that run the town.

A meeting with the boss, a job as a bar keep - a front for illicit meetings and parcel drops and Nat's new life has begun. Steady and reliable, Nat's gaining credibility and coming to the attention of the right people. A power struggle in the organisation looms and Nat has to choose sides. The old guard or the new broom?

Again option B - getting his hands bloody and becoming the man he's thus far been pretending to be. With his place in the hierarchy assured and a steady squeeze on his arm, a trip to Vegas brings back memories of his old life, when a face from Connecticut semi-recognises him. An interesting if somewhat predictable twist in our tale. Does Don get his comeuppance, or can Nat continue with the good life?

Even fifty years ago, Block could tell a mean tale. I really enjoyed this one - an interesting tale, no real moral dilemnas for the players, only the reader - Nat's a bad egg but there's enough about him that I was hoping he could survive intact.

4.5 from 5

As an interesting footnote, the background to the republication of this a year or two ago by Hard Case Crime is almost as entertaining as the tale itself. Block penned it over 50 years ago, but never knew who had published it and under which of his nom-de-plumes and what title. A chance comment on a web-post a few years ago, brought it back into the light, as someone recognised the plot from Block's description in an article and here we are.   

Read in January, 2018
Published - 1968 (this edition 2016)
Page count - 240
Source - Kindle Unlimited
Format - Kindle   

LAWRENCE BLOCK - KELLER'S FEDORA (2016)

Synopsis/blurb....

In this brand-new novella, Keller, everyone's favorite assassin for hire, is Chicago-bound on Amtrak's City of New Orleans, ready to do what he does best. But it's complicated. Usually there's someone ready to point him toward the target. Or he'll have a photo, say. Or, bare minimum, a name and address.

Not this time. When he gets to Baker's Bluff, Illinois, he'll have to play private detective before he can get down to business. Well, okay. He knows how it works. So before he boards his train, before he even packs his suitcase, Keller buys a fedora.

Keller, a faithful husband, doting father, and dedicated philatelist, has become a guilty pleasure for an increasing number of listeners. They don't think they should like the guy - but they just can't help themselves.

Cover design by Adil Dara.

Second time around for this one, audible this time and just as good as the first, if not better. Narrated by Lawrence Block himself and I really enjoyed hearing him speak for the first time. Reminded me of Willem Dafoe, having just recently seen the man in a couple of films. His narration adds an intimacy to the story.

Keller's retired from the hit man game, only all of a sudden he is isn't but in an amusing diversion from previous tales he has to play detective to identify his target. Fortunately it's not the grocery boy at the local mall, the surprising recipient of a sneaky hand shandy from the amoral wife of his employer. Keller has to track down the man who has been enjoying the favours of his employer's wife while the man's away at work.

I liked the frequent trips to and from Baker's Bluff, the casual rapore with the train conductor and the familiarity that develops between the two. I liked Keller's acquisition of a fedora, the chats with the shopkeeper who sold him it, his wife and the guys in the bar who noted his wearing it and its subsequent absence.

Keller proves to be an accomplished detective and gets to have a couple of bites of the cherry in respect of earning Dot, his handler and himself a couple of decent paychecks. The second one after Keller proverbially pulls the pin from the hand grenade and walks away.

5 from 5

Read - (listened to) April, 2020
Published - 2016
Page count - 96 (2 hrs 25 mins)
Source - Audible download code received from author's assistant
Format - Audible

-----------------------------
* THOUGHTS FROM MARCH, 2018 BELOW.....

The Block and Keller double act again with plenty of the mundane included.  Mundane in Block’s hands is entertaining and amusing as opposed to dull and dreary. We have a bit of hat-buying, a discussion or two on stamp collecting – Keller’s hobby, a bit of home life background – when he’s not killing people Keller has a normal life as a husband and father and a house renovator-cum-painter and decorator and a few train journeys to Baker’s Bluff.

The train journey’s and possibly the hat-buying are job related, Keller’s assignment is to kill a cheating wife’s boyfriend. Only thing is the cuckolded husband doesn’t know who the other man in his wife’s life is. Keller’s playing PI, hence the fedora. A bit of a stakeout ensues and one thing Keller’s sure of is that it isn’t the grocery boy who got a $2 tip and a quick five-knuckle shuffle with a happy ending in the car park of the supermarket for his helpfulness in loading up the lady’s groceries.

Keller – without spoilers - gets his man, doesn’t he always. But our tale has a twist and a bloody sting in the tale. The lady who isn’t a lady at all is still hungry for men and still playing the field. Keller again identifies the culprit and having compromised himself by ending up drinking with the guy, employs a bit of lateral thinking and subterfuge to ensure the deed gets done. 

No happy endings for anyone really – apart from Dot and Keller – who won’t be refunding any money.

4.5 from 5

Read in February, 2018
Published – 2016
Page count – 96
Source – Kindle Unlimited
Format - Kindle


 

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - X IS FOR .... X, X AND Y, XIAOLONG, XXX SHAMUS

Week 24 and X marks the spot. Lots of choice.... not!

X is for ...... 

X by Sue Grafton, the 24th entry in the Kinsey Millhone series.
To date I've read exactly one - A is for Alibi. Sadly Grafton died in 2017 before she could complete her Alphabet series of mysteries.

X (2015)

X is the New York Times number 1 bestseller and thrilling, twenty-fourth book in the Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series from Sue Grafton.

In hindsight, I marvel at how clueless I was . . . What I ask myself even now is whether I should have picked up the truth any faster than I did, which is to say not fast enough . . .

When a glamorous red head wishes to locate the son she put up for adoption thirty-two years ago, it seems like an easy two hundred bucks for private investigator Kinsey Millhone. But when a cop tells her she was paid with marked bills, and Kinsey's client is nowhere to be found, it becomes apparent this mystery woman has something to hide. Riled, Kinsey won't stop until she's found out who fooled her and why.

Meanwhile, the widow of the recently murdered P. I. – and Kinsey's old friend – Pete Wolinsky, needs help with her IRS audit. This seemingly innocuous task takes a treacherous turn when Kinsey finds a coded list amongst her friend's files. It soon leads her to an unhinged man with a catalogue of ruined lives left in his wake. And despite the devastation, there isn't a single conviction to his name. It seems this sociopath knows exactly how to cause chaos without leaving a trace.

As Kinsey delves deeper into the investigation she quickly becomes the next target of this tormentor. But can Kinsey prove her case against him before she becomes the next victim?

X is for ...... 

X and Y from David Owen.

It's the 3rd entry in the Tasmanian set Pufferfish detective series.
It's a series I've dipped in and out of. I read the first couple way back when and some more in recent years, when the author re-commenced the series after a 12 year hiatus.
13 Point Plan for a Perfect Murder, the 7th was enjoyed in 2017.
Big Red Rock, the 9th was enjoyed in 2018

X and Y (1995)

You can bend copper. All it takes is a little heat, a touch of persuasive muscle. But can you bend a poisonous fish?

Drug barons and international operators move in on the Apple Isle for what look like easy pickings. Detective Inspector Franz Heineken - aka Pufferfish - is busy tracking a series of top-drawer break-ins, when he is assigned to a government narcotics taskforce.

When its surveillance operation goes spectacularly and embarrassingly wrong, it is Heineken - weary, disaffected, and hankering for a seaside retirement - who looks a likely candidate for corruption. Enemies inside and outside the Force clearly have him in their sights. But they, like Pufferfish, fail to take into account the unknown X and Y factor.



X is for .....

Qiu Xiaolong, Chinese author of the Inspector Chen books. I've had the first in the series a while and never read it.

Death of a Red Heroine (2000)

Qiu Xiaolong's Anthony Award-winning debut introduces Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police.

A young “national model worker,” renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done. 


Lastly,

X is for ....

XXX Shamus by Red Hammond

Hammond's only novel. Not really. It's a pseudonymous offering from an author I've enjoyed reading for a long time. Who is it? Google it yourself and find out.

XXX Shamus (2013)

Hopper Garland is good at finding lost girls. When his last target tries to take her life upon being discovered, he begins to rethink his career as a private eye. However, a persuasive offer from a sexy woman has him back on the case, chasing a missing sixteen-year-old pregnant girl from the swampy ruins of post-Katrina New Orleans to the neon grime of Las Vegas. Along the way he'll have to contend with a rogue's gallery of henchmen, pornographers, and his own incestuous sister. After he makes a deal with a sociopathic murderer who believes he's found the secret to eternal life, Hopper will relearn that old saw: some things are better off left alone.

"XXX Shamus is the most trangressive PI novel ever written. It's also one of the best." - Allan Guthrie

"There are a lot of people that think they like it tough and raw, a lot of hardboiled wannabes. Okay, you tough readers. You like it so raw? Time to put up or shut up. Stick your face into the pages of XXX SHAMUS. Turn away before the last page and I'll kick your fucking teeth out. Take it. Take it all." - Victor Gischler

24 down, 2 to go!

Previous Alphabet entries........

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - A IS FOR.... AX, ABBOTT, ABERDEEN

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - B IS FOR ....... BOSTON, BIRD, BONES

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - C IS FOR.........CAPE TOWN, CONFIDENCE MEN, CROSS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - D IS FOR ....... DETROIT, DISHER, DEAD

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - E IS FOR ....... EDINBURGH, EXCESS, ELLIS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - F IS FOR ....... FLORIDA, FRANCIS, FLOATERS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - G IS FOR ....... GALWAY, GUNS, GRAFTON

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - H IS FOR ....... HAMBURG, HAMMETT, HIDDEN RIVER

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - I IS FOR ....... ICE, ICELAND, IZZO

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - J IS FOR ....... JAPAN, JACK CARTER. JELLO SALAD

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - K IS FOR ....... KING, KOREA, KEEPER

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - L IS FOR ........ LE CRIME, LEONARD, LOS ANGELES 

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - M IS FOR ........ MIAMI, MACKAY, MUCHO MOJO 

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - N IS FOR ........ NORWAY, NISBET, NEMESIS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - O IS FOR ........ OWEN, ONE NIGHT STANDS AND LOST WEEKENDS, OXFORD

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - P IS FOR ........ PARKER, PHILADELPHIA, PAYDIRT

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - R IS FOR ........ RAYMOND, ROGUE COP, RUSSIA

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - S IS FOR ...... SWEDEN, SMITH, SILENT JOE

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - T IS FOR ...... THOMPSON, TEXAS, TOWER

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - U IS FOR ...... UHNAK, UTAH, UNDER THE BRIGHT LIGHTS

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - V IS FOR ...... VALIN, VEGAS, VOICES

CRIME FICTION ALPHABET - W IS FOR ...... WILLEFORD, WALES, WHITE MEAT

2 BY MEGAN ABBOTT

A couple from author Megan Abbott this week.

Abbott is the author of nine novels in total, thus far and I've only ever heard good things about her books. I have three I think on the TBR pile, but have never read her. More fool me, I reckon

Die A Little (2005)

FEMME FATALES

OBSESSIVE LOVE

DOUBLE CROSSES

How does a respectable young woman fall into Los Angeles' hard-boiled underworld?

Shadow-dodging through the glamorous world of 1950s Hollywood and its seedy flip side, Megan Abbott's debut, Die a Little, is a gem of the darkest hue. This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney's office. Lora's comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past.

Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice's personal history and possibly jealous of Alice's hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder.

Lora's fascination with Alice's "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice's secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice's sinister past -- and present.

Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.


The End of Everything (2011)

Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood and her next door neighbor Evie Verver are inseparable. They are best friends who swap bathing suits and field-hockey sticks, and share everything that's happened to them. Together they live in the shadow of Evie's glamorous older sister Dusty, who provides a window on the exotic, intoxicating possibilities of their own teenage horizons. To Lizzie, the Verver household, presided over by Evie's big-hearted father, is the world's most perfect place.

And then, one afternoon, Evie disappears. The only clue: a maroon sedan Lizzie spotted driving past the two girls earlier in the day. As a rabid, giddy panic spreads through the Midwestern suburban community, everyone looks to Lizzie for answers. Was Evie unhappy, troubled, upset? Had she mentioned being followed? Would she have gotten into the car of a stranger?

Lizzie takes up her own furtive pursuit of the truth, prowling nights through backyards, peering through windows, pushing herself to the dark center of Evie's world. Haunted by dreams of her lost friend and titillated by her own new power at the center of the disappearance, Lizzie uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her best friend at all.