Megan Abbott writes noir. But you won’t find any career criminals, drug dealers, or cops on the take. There won’t be any dingy motels, needle-strewn parks, or hooker-infested boulevards.

You won’t be in one of Jim Thompson’s bleak Oklahoma oil towns. In fact, you’ll be in a leafy suburb. Or an upscale city block. Or a posh cabin in the piney woods.

Everyone will have a job and look healthy and say nice things. And like a Jim Thompson novel, there will be raging currents underneath those facades. But Abbott is no Thompson.

No, she’s completely her own thing. She carves out her own particular noir landscape. You should get yourself some Megan Abbott. I just finished Beware the Woman and it was even better than The Fever and You Will Know Me which were both great. Abbott is a master of pace and at evoking a sense of dread. She creates sympathetic characters in believable situations. The people aren’t remote—you feel like they could live next door. And when you find out what they are capable of, you wish they didn’t!