Title: Dead To Me
Author: Mary McCoy
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Release Date: March 3rd 2015
LA Confidential for the YA audience. This alluring noir YA mystery with a Golden Age Hollywood backdrop will keep you guessing until the last page.
"Don't believe anything they say."
Those were the last words that Annie spoke to Alice before turning her back on their family and vanishing without a trace. Alice spent four years waiting and wondering when the impossibly glamorous sister she idolized would return to her--and what their Hollywood-insider parents had done to drive her away.
When Annie does turn up, the blond, broken stranger lying in a coma has no answers for her. But Alice isn't a kid anymore, and this time she won't let anything stand between her and the truth, no matter how ugly. The search for those who beat Annie and left her for dead leads Alice into a treacherous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets--and onto the trail of a young runaway who is the sole witness to an unspeakable crime. What this girl knows could shut down a criminal syndicate and put Annie's attacker behind bars--if Alice can find her first. And she isn't the only one looking
Evoking classic film noir, debut novelist Mary McCoy brings the dangerous glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age to life, where the most decadent parties can be the deadliest, and no drive into the sunset can erase the crimes of past.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
"Ali, I need you to do one more thing for me.""Anything," I said. "Don't believe anything they say. Not about me, not about anything."
Dead To Me first caught my eye because it was a) historical fiction and b) a story of two sisters. Of course, I went in expecting an emotional historical novel about sisters who finally find each other and have a tear-stained reunion. Boy, was I wrong.
This isn't a touching story of siblings--it's noir, through and through. It's a mystery/thriller book with a complex storyline that kept me on my toes. It was intriguing and unconventional, albeit a bit puzzling at times. There were tons of twists and turns and I couldn't seem to keep up--a sign of a very well-written mystery novel. Although, it did get a bit dry, but these instances were few and far between.
Alice, the main character, was developed quite well. The same cannot be said of the majority of the characters in this book. Dead To Me's only weakness was in its character development. and I found myself mixing up the names of Annie's friends as I couldn't distinguish between their personalities. Annie herself was an extremely interesting character, and I'm sad to see that her relationship with her younger sister wasn't delved into as much as I'd hoped.
I loved the writing. It was to-the-point and really helped develop the setting of 1940s Hollywood. Indeed, nothing was sugarcoated, so don't expect a happy-go-lucky book.
The historical fiction wasn't focused on too much; just enough information and descriptions were given to help give us a feel of this time period.
Full of engaging mysteries and questionable crimes, Dead To Me was nothing short of spectacular. Its subject matter was evidently researched extensively, and while the historical fiction was not up in the reader's face, the author did succeed in subtly creating the atmosphere of 1940s LA. I truly enjoyed myself while reading Dead To Me, and it certainly has left an impact on me.
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Mary McCoy is a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. She has also been a contributor to On Bunker Hill and the 1947project, where she wrote stories about Los Angeles's notorious past. She grew up in western Pennsylvania and studied at Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin. Mary now lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Her debut novel, Dead To Me, is a YA mystery set in the glamorous, treacherous world of 1940s Hollywood.
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