A noire novel set in '50s America, but written only a year or so ago. Marion Seeley is left to work as a nurse while her husband, a doctor who's a recovering heroin addict, spends some months working for a mining company in Mexico. While her husband is away, Marion falls in with a set of good-time girls, but there's a dark side to the parties they attend, and by the time her husband returns, Marion's in big trouble.

The cover of this book is what drew me to it - I love the genre and this book stuck pretty well to it. I was impressed at how Hudson stuck to the 50's feel, rather than trying to give it a contemporary twist.

The story seemed to take second place to the setting, which is perhaps a surprise given that it was based on a true-life crime where two trunks were left at a station and discovered to have dismembered bodies inside: a pretty good set-up. But what most struck me about the book was the sort of dreamy and detached feel it all had - the whole thing didn't feel quite real somehow. It didn't feel that plausible to me that Marion would get sucked in to the situation she did, or that her husband would react the way he did, when he found out about it.

But I did enjoy it, and would read another by this author (she's done at least two more similar books so far as I can tell).

Completed : 07-Feb-2012