• Novels

• Type: Novel
• Length: 288 pages

Levin combines great talent for pure novel writing -- full-bodied characterization, subtle psychological exploration, vivid evocation of locale -- with strict technical whodunit tricks as dazzling as anything ever brought off by Carr, Rawson, Queen or Christie. Anthony Boucher

A Kiss Before Dying is is a 1953 crime novel by American author Ira Levin. - AsNotedIn

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

• Theme Group: Literary New York, NY

Places

• Des Moines, Iowa Miss Kingship left immediately for Blue River (based on Des Moines), arriving here yesterday evening.
• Drake University Campus Historic District, Des Moines He finally chose Stoddard University (fictional) in Blue River, Iowa, which was supposed to be something of a country club for the children of the Midwestern Wealthy.
• Fall River, Massachusetts HE WAS BORN in Menasset (fictional), on the outskirts of Fall River, Massachusetts, the only child of a father who was an oiler in one of the Fall River textile mills and a mother who sometimes had to take in sewing when the money ran low.
• International Building at Rockefeller Center, Then suppose we meet, say, in front of the statue at Rockefeller Center, the one of Atlas holding up the world. (International Building courtyard, 630 Fifth Ave)
• The Museum of Modern Art, New York City SUNDAY AFTERNOON MARION WENT to the Museum of Modern Art.