Bury Me Deep

In October 1931, a station agent found two large trunks abandoned in Los Angeles's Southern Pacific Station. What he found inside ignited one of the most scandalous tabloid sensations of the decade.

Inspired by this notorious true crime, Edgar(R)-winning author Megan Abbott's novel Bury Me Deep is the story of Marion Seeley, a young woman abandoned in Phoenix by her doctor husband. At the medical clinic where she finds a job, Marion becomes fast friends with Louise, a vivacious nurse, and her roommate, Ginny, a tubercular blonde. Before long, the demure Marion is swept up in the exuberant life of the girls, who supplement their scant income by entertaining the town's most powerful men with wild parties. At one of these events, Marion meets — and falls hard for — the charming Joe Lanigan, a local rogue and politician on the rise, whose ties to all three women bring events to a dangerous collision.

A story born of Jazz Age decadence and Depression-era desperation, Bury Me Deep — with its hothouse of jealousy, illicit sex and shifting loyalties — is a timeless portrait of the dark side of desire and the glimmer of redemption.

"Edgar-winner Abbott (Queenpin) explores gender inequality and its sometimes tragic results in her well-crafted fourth crime novel, inspired by the true story of Winnie Ruth Judd (aka the 'Trunk Murderess'). In 1931, Marion Seeley, a young woman whose husband has gone abroad on undisclosed business, secures a clerical job at the Werden Clinic in the capital of an unnamed Midwest state. From a veteran nurse, Louise Mercer, Marion learns that doctors have been misbehaving with the clinic's nursing staff. Marion becomes involved with Joe Lanigan, a close friend of the doctors and a reliable source of entertainment and money for the often cash-strapped nurses. When Louise and Ginny Hoyt, Louise's roommate, confront Marion about her relationship to Joe, the women get into a heated argument that leads to murder and a startling predicament for Marion. Readers should be prepared for a lot of backstory before the pace picks up and hurtles to a shocking ending. (July)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

In Bury Me Deep, “Megan Abbott delivers. She is simply one of the most exciting and original voices of her generation” (Laura Lippman, New York Times bestselling author of What the Dead Know).

• Edgar® Award winner: With her first three novels, megan Abbott has been a two-time nominee for crime writing’s top honor, the edgar® Award, and now a winner for her third novel, Queenpin. The prize has cemented Abbott’s place as “the reigning crown princess of noir” (Booklist).

• Jazz age caper: Synonymous with the rise of modern-style corruption and louche social mores, the Jazz Age is one of the most colorful periods in American history, times notorious for inciting scandalous crimes. Steeped in authentic period detail, Bury Me Deep resounds to the present day with echoes of doomed love and the tragedy it wrought.

• “The trunk murderess”: Bury Me Deep turns on the indelible details of a double murder whose victims are dismembered and concealed in trunks bound by train for Los Angeles. As a portrayal of an accused murderess (dubbed “Tiger Woman,” “The Blonde Butcher” and “The Velvet Tigress”) trapped by circumstance of gender, class, and, most of all, the blindness of passion, the novel is an astounding feat of suspense and intrigue.

Megan Abbott has taught literature, writing, and film at New York University and the State University of New York at Oswego. She received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University in 2000, and in 2002 Palgrave Macmillan published her nonfiction study, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir. She lives in New York City.