In the vein of the Black Dahlia case, Megan Abbott takes a real missing persons case and weaves a story around it, in her sophomore novel THE SONG IS YOU. In October 1949, a young starlet by the name of Jean Splanger goes out for a night, never to come back, with a purse and mysterious note being the only clues to her absence.

Fast-forward two years and we meet former movie magazine writer Gil “Hop” Hopkins, now a studio press agent who has to put out the fires – the scandalous things that need hushing up so as to not ruin stars’ careers. It’s business as usual for Hopkins until one day, a girl who was friendly with Hop back in the day around the time of the disapperance comes to him out of the blue, claiming he knows more about what really happened and that he should do something about it.

This puts Hop on the trail to find out what really happened to Jean Splanger, taking him straight into the dark side of Hollywood, where fingers of blame are pointed every which way. Is it all mob-related? Or maybe it has something to do with a screen duo bearing a close resemblance to Martin & Lewis, except these two like to play rough with the ladies. Or perhaps the case was a botched abortion, as they’re led to believe.

Abbott is a master storyteller not to go unnoticed. She weaves the mystery so well, you won’t want to put the book down once you start reading. Abbott mixes real-life events with the fictional so well, portraying those long-ago days of Hollywood when things were kept so hush-hush and reality held at arm’s length. THE SONG IS YOU will be a must-read for fans of James Ellroy and the like, who all seem to get thrills from reading about the dark underbelly of Tinseltown, no matter where it might lead. –Bruce Grossman

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