Bury Me Deep

As someone who has taken a lifelong interest in this case, researched it myself and even made a movie about it (2007's "Murderess"), I have to say that I was skeptical at the outset of reading a fictitious take on the Winnie Ruth Judd story. Especially after having read and been disappointed with "The Woman Who Found Grace"--a mystery thriller from a few years ago that attempted to incorporate the WRJ story into its outline and, in my opinion, failed completely to justify the choice. But Megan Abbot's "Bury Me Deep" won me over with its direct and forthright narrative and it's poetic, sometimes verging on surreal, language and imagery. Marion's internal dialog, for example, as she tries to reconcile her blind attraction to "Gentleman Joe" with what she knows to be his "dead-eyed", self-serving nature, is reminiscent of poems by Sylvia Plath, who characteristically would lull the reader with a seemingly innocuous description and then blindside them with a deadly last line. As her own heroine, Plath's tragedy was always her stark self-awareness of her own complicity in her doom. Likewise, Marion Seeley sees trouble from the get-go in "Bury Me Deep" but can't keep herself from walking into the fire. It's full of too many tempting fruits. Especially effective is Abott's choice to have Marion's dead friends "haunt" her throughout the book, giving it the feel of a lopsided fairy-tale in parts. Another nice touch is the "imagined last act" she gives the real-life case. What if things had worked out differently for Winnie Ruth Judd? Like the remake of "Carrie" and Johnny Depp's, "From Hell"--a retelling of the Jack the Ripper tale--both of which added imagined happier endings to their source stories, "Bury Me Deep" may be fun for enthusiasts of the Judd tale, who would otherwise know the ending from page one. In a final chapter, Abbot tells how and where she converged and diverged from the real Judd story which I think was a good choice too. It helps to know as you read and re-read the story what is based on factual account and what isn't. Her theory on the details of Winnie/Marion's deadly fight with her friends for example--which to this day remain shrouded in mystery--is just as plausible or implausible as any out there. And as the case remains partially unsolved (all we know for sure is that Winnie shot her friends and travelled to L.A. from Phoenix with their bodies checked as baggage in trunks) every theory, even those derived for the purpose of entertainment, deserves consideration.

Wow. What an exciting read. Abbott's attention to detail makes you really feel like your reading a story from the 1930s. After a slow deliberate start the book has a pay off with plenty of sex, blood and scandal... all done without being crude. This is one of the best hard-boiled tales I've read in a while. Highly recommended.

If you have never read the work of Megan Abbott, do yourself a favor and get a copy of BURY ME DEEP right now. In this, just her fourth novel, she has already established herself as one of the great mystery writers working in America today and is on her way to becoming a bestselling author. Abbott labors in the hard-boiled, noir section of the mystery genre. She, along with authors like Charles Ardai, Jason Starr and Charlie Huston, is breathing fresh life into one of America's most important literary contributions of the 20th century. All of her previous novels were nominated for Edgar Awards, and QUEENPIN, her second, won both an Edgar and Barry Award. BURY ME DEEP stands an excellent chance of getting her another Edgar. What Abbott does that is so unique and fresh is revisit old true crime cases from the glory days of noir and re-imagine them. So QUEENPIN was inspired by the true life story of Virginia Hill, part-time actress, mob courier and, most famously, main squeeze of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. Her third novel, THE SONG IS YOU, fictionalized the real-life disappearance off the face of the earth of dark-haired starlet Jean Spangler in 1946. Of course, Abbott is not the only mystery writer who works this side of the street. James Ellroy has turned the real history of 1950s Los Angeles and modern America itself into noir in a series of excellent books, the latest of which, BLOOD'S A ROVER, will be out in September. BURY ME DEEP tackles the now forgotten but once tabloid-fueled case of Winnie Ruth Judd, the "Trunk Murderess" or "Blonde Butcher" as the papers christened her. The case was right out of film noir. In October 1931, the bodies of two young Phoenix women were found dissected in two abandoned steamer trunks left at the Southern Pacific Railroad Station in LA. After four days the trail led to the 26-year-old Judd, who confessed, claiming self-defense. Only an insanity plea kept her from the gallows. She would spend 30 years in a mental institution despite seven attempts to escape. In her meticulous research, Abbot uncovered a sliver of doubt. After all, in film noir, nothing is what it seems. Could Judd have been set up by a powerful man in the community who she and the girls were involved with? Using many of the actual details of the case, Abbot weaves a spellbinding tale. She tells the story from the point of view of Marion Seeley, a young naïve woman whose doctor husband is a morphine junkie. Unable to hold a medical license in the states, Dr. Seeley in desperation takes a job as a doctor at a Mexican mine. He can't bring his wife, so he gets her a job as a clerk in an Arizona TB clinic until he can make some money and return for her. The lonely girl is soon befriended by two women: Louise, a world-wise nurse at the clinic, and her roommate, Ginny, who is slowly dying from TB. Abbott does a perfect job of bringing us back into this lost world, a world of kidskin gloves, soft cloche hats and "shingle bob" hairstyles. Prohibition

but sometimes fiction fills the gaps that truth leaves behind. Not just another one of those tawdry tales of victims and vice, filled with complex characters and more shades of gray than all the dark hours before dawn. A thread of lurid truth, expertly woven absolutely gives this absorbing novel its feeling of authenticity. Painstaking research and darkly poetic language make this a touching and tragic story that I simply could not put down. Megan Abbott is absolutely one of my favorite finds of the last few years and she certainly scores again with Bury Me Deep.

I have read both Ms. Abbott's previous Noir's, 'Die a Little' (which is my absolute favorite), and 'The Song Is You' (also very, very good). I had high hopes for this book, but was somewhat disappointed upon starting it. The first 30% of the story seemed rushed and disjointed. I didn't feel as though I was getting to know the characters, and people and places jumped around so much it was hard to keep things straight. I almost gave up on it. I'm so glad I didn't. This story is based loosely on the real life crime tale of Winnie Ruth Judd (a.k.a. The Trunk Murderess) in the 1930's. However, don't think you can just head on over to Wikipedia, read the story of Winnie Ruth, and think you have Ms. Abbott's novel all figured out (I made this mistake, but it made the ending all the more enjoyable). Ms. Abbott has altered the actual events into a 'What would have happened if...' , and it makes for a riveting story. Marion Seeley does not meet the same fate as her real life counterpart, and some key players involved in the crime and Marion's life, have a very different ending to their stories as well. While the beginning of this novel frustrated me, the rest more then made up for it. Overall, I absolutely recommend this. I am not a regular fan of dark novels filled with sex, drugs and murder, but Megan Abbott is one of the ONLY authors of this genre that I always keep an eye out for. While her style of writing may take a little getting used to, she has a way of pulling you right into the seedy side of a long-past era of glitz and glamour.