Ira Levin wrote seven novels in his long career, as well as the long-running Broadway play Deathtrap, garnering raves from critics and his peers for much of his output despite working across a broad range of themes, with novels as seemingly disparate as Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives. His debut novel, A Kiss Before Dying, was a straightforward noir thriller, a grim take on a ‘perfect’ murder that uses shifting perspectives to keep the reader guessing in the first half of the novel and raise the stakes for the second half. (It’s out of print; the link above goes to the Kindle version.)
The first third of the novel centers on Dorothy, the daughter of a very wealthy copper magnate, who is dating a charming classmate at her college and has just revealed to him that she’s pregnant, which does not comport with his plans to marry her for her expected inheritance. Assuming she’ll be cut out of her father’s will for becoming pregnant outside of wedlock, the boyfriend first tries to get her to abort the baby and, when that fails, decides to kill her and make it look like a suicide. He succeeds, at least at first, but Dorothy’s sister Ellen can’t believe Dorothy would kill herself – especially since no one knew she was pregnant – and decides to go investigate.
The book has been filmed twice, once in 1956 to positive reviews and once in 1991 to negative ones, although in both cases the screenwriters changed the story enough that I don’t think either could possibly match what Levin accomplished here in the book. The murderer here isn’t so much twisted as callous and insensate, viewing Dorothy as a mark to make himself wealthy, and viewing all of his victims as obstacles, with no apparent compunctions whatsoever about killing to protect his own interests. Levin also takes advantage of the author’s privilege of hiding key information from you that would have to be revealed on a screen, which raises the stakes for the reader, makes the reveal especially potent, and then lets him play with perspective throughout the third part of the book, where you’re unsure if the killer will get away with his crimes or if the ‘good guys’ will figure it out in time. It’s very classic, straight noir, with a dim view of humanity that leans a bit towards Jim Thompson but with more balance between the good and the bad.
Next up: Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
I recently watched the 1956 film version. I made the mistake of looking up an actor’s name on Wikipedia while I was watching it and ended up seeing something in the plot summary that spoiled the twist in the film. I can say it was handled differently, and yet similarly, to the way that you describe the reveal in the novel. Like you said, there are things you have to show in a film that you can keep hidden in a novel, so I do give the filmmaker’s credit for how they handle the twist of the film.
I was introduced to Ira Levin freshman year of high school, reading The Boys from Brazil for English Lit and then picking up Rosemary’s Baby and This Perfect Day because the teacher was done and gave away his copies. The latter is probably my all-time favorite novel. I’m a dead-tree reader, so I guess it’s back to scouring libraries and used book stores (never a bad thing!) to find a copy of this one.