Book: Dead to Me Author: Mary McCoy
Published: 2015
Source: Review copy from publisher via Netgalley
In 1948, sixteen-year-old Alice Gates gets a call from a hospital, telling her they've found her sister beaten half to death in a public park. This is surprising in more ways than one. This is the same sister Alice hasn't seen in four years, ever since Annie stormed out of the house. Alice has spent those four years bewildered and depressed. Meanwhile, her parents refuse to acknowledge that they even have an older daughter and continue to pursue Hollywood glitz.
Alice rushes to the hospital by herself, unwilling to trust her parents. Once there, she discovers her sister still conscious and a private detective who tells her Annie was mixed up with some very shady people. To understand what happened to Annie, Alice will have to take on her sister's quest, and follow a mystery through the glittering highs and festering depths of Hollywood.
This is very much a Hollywood noir book. The film industry, shown here at the height of the glamour period, glitters and dazzles while the center rots away. But it's more than a cynical novel about terrible people. As Alice slowly uncovers the mystery of why her sister left and what she's been doing in the interim, she learns about her sister and herself in equal measure. Put together with the mix of women that Alice meets along with the way, as well as discovering new things about her mother and her once-best-friend, McCoy injects a powerful meditation on relationships between women as friends, sisters, mothers, and adversaries.
Fast-paced, addictive, full of flawed and untrustworthy people, this book will feed the appetites of those who love a dark-edged mystery.
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