A Kiss Before Dying | kageeh library | TinyCat (2024)

A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin is a prime example of how mysteries were written. Before CSI and the overload of forensic science became the norm for a good crime/mystery. This tale is as much about the drama of the characters as it is about the crimes themselves.

"...His plans had been running so

beautifully, so goddamned beautifully, and now she was going to smash them all. Hate erupted and flooded through him, gripping his face with jaw aching pressure. That was all right though; the lights were out.
And she, she kept on sobbing weakly in the dark, her cheek pressed against his bare chest, her tears and her breath burning hot. He wanted to push her away..."

Every young man makes a plan and he has made one for his whole future. For his life beyond the small town he grew up in and the traps that had befallen his friends and his father. Trapping him in a dead end job with an unhappy wife and a dead end life. That was not for him. That was why he was gone into the military and then to college. For his future. For his life and she was about to take that all away from him. But he wasn't going to let that happen, he wasn't going to let her take that all away from him.

"...It still wasn't too late. People wrote suicide notes and then stalled around before actually doing it. He looked at his watch; 9:20. The earliest Ellen could get the note would be...three o'clock. Five hours and forty minutes. No step by step planning now. It would have to be quick, positive. No trickery that counted on her doing a certain thing at a certain time. No poison. How else do people kill themselves? In five hours and forty minutes she must be dead..."

A Kiss Before Dying was written back in 1953. The stark differences in a crime novel then and what is now are startling. This is beyond pretend noire. This is the real thing. This is from when Hitchco*ck reigned supreme and not someone that gets a honorable mention in film class. The subtleties, the pacing, the slow build of tension until when the killer is unveiled and the scope of his plan becomes clear. This is what writing was and should have always been. There is some violence in this tale but actually very little of it. It is not the act of murder itself that holds importance, but the motive and the slow unraveling of the crime that on the surface, seems to be one thing but is in essence, only the strand in a much larger web of blood and deceit.

Levin is an accomplished author whose tales of crime and horror are now classics. The Boys From Brazil. The Stepford Wives. Rosemary's Baby. You've heard of them and you owe it to yourself as a reader to enjoy them. A Kiss Before Dying is another such novel.

A very good read.

I picked this up on the heels of another Levin classic, Rosemary's Baby. This was Levine's take on the seductive psychopath murderer. My favorite exploration of this type of character is presented in Agatha Christie's Endless Night but this would be a close second. In this novel you are presented

with the murderer up front and although you are privy to his thoughts his name is deliberately kept from the reader. The clues are that he is a college aged male and blond. The reader is then introduced to other characters fitting the same description and left to unravel which one is the true killer. The story was very clever and kept me turning the pages. To say much more would be to give too much away. Highly recommended.

I've never been big into crime books, but this one was enjoyable, mostly for its good characterisation, and the attention Levin pays to the little details. The plot itself is original - a man commits his first murder to get out of a forced marriage to a pregnant girl, and goes on to date her

sister. His identity in the first part is not revealed, which proves highly entertaining come the second act, but at the same time it made for some annoying grammar and style decisions in the first.

This post World War II mystery is very tightly plotted, yet structured like a fairy tale. Things move in threes, and we know the first two princes (or princesses) always fail before the last one succeeds. That said, there were enough twists to keep it interesting. To avoid slipping into

spoiler-city, I'll just say this. You have to acknowledge a novel that has enough staying power and detail to be "a fresh contemporary setting" at its initial publication, but becomes "historic" during its lifetime.

A young college man is dating Dorothy, the daughter of a wealthy copper tycoon, hoping to marry her and eventually inherit her father's money. His plan hits a roadblock when Dorothy tells him that she's pregnant and they must marry right away. Not only that but her father will disown her for

getting pregnant out of wedlock - that means no money for the young man. The only way the man can get out of this predicament is to kill Dorothy. If only that was the end of his problems...

A Kiss Before Dying, first published in 1953, is Ira Levin's debut novel. It won the 1954 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Levin is a master of suspense and this novel does not disappoint. He does not reveal the identity of Dorothy's boyfriend in the first part of the book, referring to him only with pronouns. When Dorothy's sister Ellen goes hunting for her murderer, the reader is right alongside her discovering clues and trying to figure out who the killer is. I was on the edge of my seat and as confused as Ellen about who was the murderer. Even after the identity of the killer is discovered the suspense continues right up until the very end.

I listened to the audio version of this book. I thought the narrator, Mauro Hantman, did an excellent job. He was able to convincingly voice all of the characters - from tough as nails Leo Kingship to soft spoken naive Dorothy. I especially loved the voice he gave Gordon Gant.

I highly recommend A Kiss Before Dying.

A smart, ambitious young man, with a penchant for killing, discovers that finding and marrying a rich girl is a difficult proposition--but perhaps if he can keep it all in the family, practice will make perfect! This is a real page-turner, marred by a few significant flaws, notably that a lot of

the plot depends upon women acting really stupid, and lots of typos. There is also a really stupid male police chief. But neither stupidity or anything else is going to stop Levin from getting to his goal--even though we can see it coming from a mile away--and he speeds through roadblocks and even a couple of "Bridge Out" signs to get there.

Along the way, however, we can certainly enjoy the ride. The killer himself is quite an interesting character, and even has a few sympathetic traits. His mother is well drawn also. And the book's settings, whether a college town, New York City, or the final scenes (which not to spoil anything I won't identify the location of), come to life with the details the author adds, such as the art or books the characters like. This sets it apart from a lot of pulp novels that may have deft plots or action sequences but lack the depth Levin provides here.

I don't know what people expect when they read classic novels... Car chases and stuff blowing up and the main character having graphic sex and swearing every 2nd sentence? This is a classic, and has none of those things. What it does have, though, is suspense, tension, to the point writing, and a

horrible key character. Pretty much exactly what you'd look for in a noir crime suspense novel.

It is written in 3 "sections", which makes sense once you realize what the main character is up to. Section 2 is definitely the most suspenseful and I found section 3 went on a bit too long - really, I didn't need a long description of the view of a smelter, followed by a walkthrough description of how a smelter worked, and so on... I guess the reason for all this detail comes clear at the end, but I don't think it was as much of a surprise ending as the author intended (which makes all this build up to an ending you expect a bit.... well... long winded.).

Wow, that was so good. One of the more disturbing books I've read in recent memory, but not because of gore, of which there is almost none. It's not really a whodunit, since the reader knows who the killer is from the beginning, but it's engrossing to watch the characters try to figure it out. A

man's girlfriend reveals that she is pregnant, and he decides to take drastic measures to "fix" the situation. The creepiest part is how justified he feels he is in all his actions. The best villains think they are heroes, after all, Recommended if you're looking for a good psychological thriller.

Ira Levin is well-known as a writer whose novels have been turned into wildly successful movies, including A Kiss Before Dying, Rosemary’s Baby, The Boys From Brazil, and The Stepford Wives. A Kiss Before Dying first came to the silver screen in 1956 starring Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward, and

Mary Astor. It was remade in 1991, starring Matt Dillon, Sean Young, and Diane Ladd.
This, however, is the book and it came before any of the movies. In fact, what is amazing about it is that it was Levin’s very first novel and was published at age 23. Otto Penzler, in his introduction to the book, marvels at how much genius was shown by this early success, comparing it to Bobby Fischer’s success at chess.

The book is divided into three parts for the three sisters: Dorothy, Ellen, and Marion Kingship.
A Kiss Before Dying is the story of a young man from a poor family in rural Massachusetts, a fair-haired boy who charms everyone he meets. The narrative is so matter-of-fact as he, seemingly on the outside being this normal guy, plans his atrocious deeds step-by-step. And, it is striking how he pulled off the perfect crime, leaving behind such scant evidence that he could never be prosecuted. No one, least of all the authorities, could possibly suspect this fine young man could be capable of such horrendous things. The greatness of this book is how a charming, intelligent man who no one could possibly suspect of being a murderering sociopath who will stop at nothing to achieve what he wants. The story is haunting in the way it is told and the way Levin slowly takes the reader along for a ride on the creepy express. This book is highly recommended.

A handsome and manipulative young college man in the early 1950s hoping to become rich in a hurry decides to marry into wealth. However, when the young man is informed by the wealthy debutant that she is pregnant, he fears that the father will disown her leaving him and her in poverty. She is

insistent that the two should elope and find their way in the world without her father's fortunes. However, he is determine to achieve his life dream even if he has to resort to murder.

Ira Levin's first published novel was later followed by other noted works including Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives. A Kiss Before Dying is a classic example of crime-noir, which has been adapted twice into film, once starring a young Robert Wagner and the second with Matt Dillon. The author skillfully builds the suspense causing the reader to turn pages at a faster pace to see what happens next. While reading, I kept waiting for the young man to receive his comeuppance which never seems to come.

Really quite good. In the first part of the novel, Levin manages to get the reader into the mind of the murderer-to-be, so much so that I actually felt anxiety and empathy for the bad guy. That didn't last, but it was a unique feeling to be practically rooting for the murderer (at least for me). It

probably helped that the victim wasn't all that likeable. The plot plays out beautifully with a few twists and turns along the way and a very satisfying ending. The characters weren't cardboard cutouts, but also weren't fleshed out too thoroughly given the short length of the book. But the little plot details here and there really sold it for me.