Boekverslag : Ira Levin - A Kiss Before Dying
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1199 woorden.
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1199 woorden.
Title
A kiss before dying
Author
Ira Levin
The title
A kiss before dying. The boy dates the girls and plans to get married with them every time, but these girls get pregnant or try to find the murder of their sisters and he wants to kill them to be out of any problems.
The main characters
The boy, who has no identity in the first and second chapter, Bud Corliss he's obsessed by the rich family Kingship.
Dorothy Kingship, the first sister he dates, who got pregnant and committed 'suicide'.
Ellen Kingship, the second sister he dates, who investigated on the murder of Dorothy and got killed by her boyfriend Bud, because she knew too much.
Marion Kingship, the third sister and his wife, is a quiet girl and denies he is the murderer of her sisters.
Leo Kingship, the father of the girls, who is a rich man and owner of Kingship Copper Incorporation.
When and where does the story play
The story plays around 1950, it begins at the Stoddard College in Blue River. In chapter three it continues in New York City, the hometown of the Kingship family.
The themes
It's about this boy who dates the sisters of a rich family. But the girls messed up and got killed by the boy because he wants to be in the family without them knowing he murdered one of them and got one of them pregnant.
The actual outline
The Kingship family obsesses the man. Leo Kingship is the father of three girls, Dorothy, Ellen and Marion. In chapter one is the man dating Dorothy, but when they find out that she is pregnant he understands that they will never be excepted in the family, because they aren't even married. So he intends to murder her. His first try is arsenic, a poison he brought into two capsules, but she never took them. They were at the Blue River Municipal Building for their marriage, where he attempts to murder her again. He pushed her off the roof.
In chapter two Ellen is investigating on the murder of her sister. She knows she was dating a blond boy from her English class and that she was getting married that day so that he must be the one. Her boyfriend Bud Corllis isn't very glad about her investigating on Dorothy's murder, but she still continues. She got two folders of two blond boys from The Dean, on Dwight Powell and Gordon Gant. She visits Gant, but he isn't there and his landlady doesn't believe Ellen after a while about her being his cousin. So when he arrives there, she escapes to her hotel, but Gant followed her and ask for an explanation. In her apartment he finds the letter to Bud where she writes about her opinion on Dorothy's murder. Gant tells her he hardly knew Dorothy and swears he didn't kill her. After he left she writes to bud that Powell must be the one, and never mentioned Gant.
Powell works in a drugstore where she meets him, and tells him her name is Evelyn Kittredge and goes to the cinema with him. Gant called her when she got back and thinks it's too risky to go out again with Powell. The next evening they went to the Municipal Building because Ellen says she has to bring a letter to a lawyer's office. She got Powell as far to come with her to the roof. She talks about Dorothy's suicide and he gets kind of nervous.
He tells her he was her boyfriend for a while, but then sees her matchbox with her real name and asks for explanation. She gets scared and tells him about her being pregnant, what he didn't know, and he could be her murderer. They went back to her hotel and talk about the whole thing. He tells her she was dating a blond guy after they broke up and he had the address of the boy. They go to Powell's place where he searches for his notebook, but when he found it a man comes out of the closet with a gun. It's Bud, the boy who Powell saw with Dorothy. Bud shoots Powell and tells Ellen he tried to kill her and that they got in a fight. When she drives away with Bud, he tells her about him killing Dorothy and she can't tell anyone he did it so he has to kill her too.
He shot her by a closed restaurant.
In chapter three, Bud calls Marion and tells her he had dated Ellen, but still has a book of hers and he wondered he could bring it over. Marion, who's a quiet, modest women, hesitates because she isn't used of people, she doesn't know, coming over. They meet in a bar, but she leaves very quickly. He deliberately meets her in the museum and they have a good time together. After spending a lot of time with each other, she invites him over for dinner with her father, who isn't keen about his daughter dating a poor man he doesn't really know .A couple of months later they are planning to get married. Gant has read the article and visited Leo Kingship to tell him about the evidence he found on the murderer of his daughters. Leo doesn't believe that Bud is the actual murderer, but Gant also told him he transferred from Stoddard College (Dorothy's school) to Cadwell (Ellen's school).
When Marion heard that she got angry, because she thought he hired Gant to gather information about Bud. The evening they had dinner with his mother and her father, she starts a conversation about their kids transferring from Stoddard to another college. He tells her about his transfer, so she wouldn't get suspicious, and told her he didn't know Dorothy. Gant continued his investigation and broke into his mother's house. He found a strongbox and took it to Leo. There were very old Kingship Copper pamphlets and more papers. Leo showed them to his daughter, but she got very upset. She denied all the facts, but when she saw the note of the things she liked the most he had written she got scared. The next day Leo, Marion, Bud and Gant as Mr. Dettweiler went to the sewers of the Kingship Copper Corporation. They were walking by the boiling copper and after a while Marion left. The three men were walking down the catwalk above the copper when Leo asked Bud how he got Dorothy to write the suicide note. Bud got terrified and told him he didn't knew Dorothy, but he kept asking about the note. Bud tried to keep himself under control. Leo and Gant were threatening to throw him of the catwalk if he didn't tell them how he let her write the note. Bud tried to get help but nobody could hear him over the noise, he told him or her she translated it for Spanish then he slipped and hung on the cables. He couldn't hold on and fell in the boiling copper.
My opinion
I think this is a really good book, it's easy to read and very thrilling.
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