For this novel, Megan Abbott is inspired by a real event, the disappearance in October 1949 of a second-rate actress Jean Spangler. Combining brilliantly, real and fictional characters, she skillfully back the son of the case thanks to a particularly sharp and documentation reveals the hidden side of Hollywood in the 50s, the scenes of the film industry in the post-war with all the sordid sides of this dream factory: debauchery, drugs, racketeering, blackmail. It is in this corrupt world that arrive from across the USA, men and women hopeful, desperate to become famous. John Slangler was one of them.
Megan Abbott succeeds here, a black fleece, cynical, captivating, with an ambitious and brilliant scenario based on a perfect documentation. Particularly well written, it is both an investigation into the company of Hollywood after the war and at the same time on the intricacies of the human soul. A special mention for its main character, complex, dark and absolutely fascinating.
