Sunset City

by Melissa Ginsburg

A taut, erotically charged literary noir set in Houston about a woman caught up in her friend’s shocking murder, and the dark truths she uncovers. Before the drugs, Danielle Reeves was Charlotte Ford’s most loyal and vibrant friend. She helped Charlotte through her mother’s illness and death, and opened up about her own troubled family. The two friends were inseparable, reveling in Houston’s shadowy corners. But then Danielle’s addiction got the best of her and she went to prison for four years. When she gets out, she and Charlotte reconnect. Charlotte hopes this is a new start for their friendship. But then, a detective shows up at Charlotte’s apartment. Danielle has been murdered, bludgeoned to death. Overwhelmed by grief, Charlotte is determined to understand how the most alive person she has ever known could end up dead. But the deeper Charlotte descends into Danielle’s dark world, the less she understands. Was Danielle a hapless victim or master manipulator? Was she really intent on starting over or was it all an act? To find out the truth, Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up. Houston has a way of feeding on bad habits and Charlotte doesn’t want to get swallowed whole, a victim of her own anguished desires.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Noir, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Contemporary

208 pages, Hardcover

First published April 12, 2016

About the author

Melissa Ginsburg is the author of the poetry collection Dear Weather Ghost, published by Four Way Books, and the chapbook Arbor, from New Michigan Press. Her poems have appeared in Field, Pleiades, Jubilat, Denver Quarterly, and other magazines. She holds a BA in English from the University of Houston and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Originally from Houston, Texas, Melissa now lives in Oxford, Mississippi. She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Mississippi.

Reviews

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not expecting that plot twist

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for the booktubeathon 2016 challenge - read a book after sunset.

I'm not much of a crime or noir person... but mr pastore read this and liked it, it was in the house and it had sunset in the title.
I was interested enough in this to keep reading (though happy it was short) and the writing was good. I dunno though, never really grabbed me and didn't feel involved at all.

One thing that did keep me going was imagining that the detective was Aiden Quinn in Practical Magic... was hoping he would make some cactus pancakes and his favourite symbol was a star....

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give all the credit to the team at Ecco who avoided the temptation to compare this book to Gone Girl or Girl on the Train. It's a great book that's better than that kind of marketing. It falls right into that spot, though, and is on its surface similar to GOTT because of the self-destructive female protagonist whose world is shaken by a murder.

Noir is one of my favorite genres and I couldn't pass up a Houston Noir (I'm a big fan of Attica Locke's Houston-based crime novels as well) after spending a while living just outside the city. The muggy, swampy, money-saturated city is a perfect setting for this kind of book.

While the basic setup of the book is familiar (long-lost friend murdered), Charlotte's growing obsession with it that pulls her out of a mundane life barely making ends meet is expertly done. Unable to stop thinking about her friend who grew up rich but threw away a comfortable life for drugs, a stint in prison, and stripping, Charlotte starts to mimic Danielle's life, getting close to her friends and lovers. Following her friend's downward spiral starts to unravel her own life.

I often don't enjoy books with this kind of protagonist, someone with no direction, scenes of casual drug use and sex, that all seem to just meander without going anywhere. But Ginsburg has written an excellent book and there's always an undercurrent of suspense and movement that gives the book life. These characters feel like real people, Charlotte's coping techniques all seem natural even as they get more and more risky. The sex and the erotically charged scenes definitely place this nicely in the Psychosexual Thriller/Erotic Noir genre as well. (I love that genre, there's just not enough of it.)

Blurbs here are from Megan Abbott and Tom Franklin, and it's a good fit if you enjoy either of those authors. Definitely will end up on my list of favorite crime novels of 2016.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A dark, erotic, menacing piece of noir that features a cast of screwed up twentysomethings thrust together by a grisly murder. Ginsburg writes like a hardboiled pro - this doesn't feel like a debut novel. The descriptions are poetic, the images lingering and the characters defined and flawed. I had some quibbles with the pacing and plot, but overall this was a gripping debut, murky and gritty, pulling the reader through the streets of Houston and down into its darkest corners. Looking forward to her next book.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not that satisfying if you're looking for a crime novel, but not that satisfying if you want lit fic either. Also fell into that old cliche trap of a woman having sex with a woman to show she's going to the dark side - but don't worry, eventually she emerges into safe, normal, good heteronormativity.

[Madilyn Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read the inside flap of this novel at the library and decided I had to pick it up. It was super intriguing! According to the blurb, this novel is about the murder of the main character's best friend, and as the main character- Charlotte- tries to uncover the mystery of her best friend's death, the possibility that her best friend may be a completely different person emerges. I love novels like this, so I went in with high expectations and high hopes. Those were only bolstered by the praise I saw plastered on the back of the novel.

So, good things about the novel. I'm glad it takes place in Houston, it's refreshing to read a novel set in a place I'm familiar with- but that's a silly preference, it doesn't really add to or detract from the quality of the book. I'm a fan of the author's descriptive style (though some things are questionable- what does being red-eyed have to do with a drowned kitten?). I also feel that Charlotte's actions and emotions were apt considering the death of her friend, and I enjoyed the way those were written as well.

Unfortunately... I have quite a few nitpicky things to say.
I feel like the blurb didn't match the story at all. As I read it, it felt to me like it was more about Charlotte struggling to get over her friend's death than her actively trying to investigate why she died. (The amount of drugs and alcohol taken and sex had in this story- there's no way that was Charlotte trying to uncover the secrets behind her friend's death.) And Charlotte's friend, Danielle, seems like the same person throughout the story. It doesn't seem like she could've been a completely different person, like the summary hinted at. Again, I feel like the story focused more on Charlotte's recovery than the events surrounding Danielle's death. Sure, Charlotte kept thinking about various people that could have done it... but that seemed to me like a small percentage of the book (and this book is not even 200 pages long). In addition to that, I expected that there would be an introduction to Danielle and Charlotte's friendship, like the reconnection that is mentioned in the blurb, instead of it jumping straight into the thick of things. Moreover, the summary says Danielle went to prison for four years, but in the novel (early on- it's not really a spoiler), it's said that she went for twenty-four months for possession. Unless I forgot how to do math or the number of months in a year suddenly changed, that sounds like just two years to me. (I really hope I didn't miss anything.)
Most importantly though, this book didn't really grab me. I wanted to keep reading- no matter how awful a book is, I try to finish it (with some very rare exceptions)- but it wasn't like my life depended on it. I only finished it for the sake of curiosity, and nothing more. Thankfully it was short.

Overall, I was disappointed with the novel. I think it may have been the clumsy writing of the blurb that led to my eventual dislike; because of the way it was written, I expected something completely different than what was promised. I would not recommend this to a friend.

[Tim Nokken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Title caught my eye when reading an Ole Miss promo brochure during a visit to Oxford. Saw the book was a murder mystery set in Houston. Having lived in Houston and loving the city, I thought it sounded like something I'd enjoy. Overall, the story had promise, but fell short on a number of fronts. First, the characters never really received the depth and development they deserved. Most of them come across as drug addled sex fiends who, somehow, have the ability to exist in society. As such, the mystery of the murder unfolds not through detective work, but because of the protagonist's drug fueled exploits with mutual friends of the victim. Having lived in Houston, it struck me as odd as to how frequently and how far the characters range about the city. One gets the impression the protagonist lives in the Museum District, yet seems to bike all over the area (which is something I would find odd in Houston). Additionally, they also seem to roam to the ends of the city -- which are really really far away -- in search for drugs and do so while drunk/stoned. Navigating Houston traffic sober is hard enough, doing it in a drunk/drug-induced haze would be unthinkable. In the end, I wanted to like it more, but it seemed so patchwork I just couldn't.

[Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billed as ‘taut, erotically charged literary noir’, Sunset City pretty much ticks all these boxes, and in common with the brilliant Cracked by Barbra Leslie, explores the life of a damaged young woman in an impersonal and isolating metropolis, in this case Houston. Through her first person narrative, we observe Charlotte immersing herself totally in the life of her murdered friend Danielle, to uncover the truth behind her death, and drawing her into maelstrom of danger and jealousy. Fans of edgy, slight and sexy crime fiction in the style of Megan Abbott will love this. There’s a good development of Charlotte’s character as she navigates the underbelly of Houston life, encountering the less savoury characters that Danielle has been associating with, and drawing the reader in to a hazy world of drugs and sex, that are graphically explored in the course of the book.

This is another incredibly female-centric novel with much time expended on developing their characters, and very little development of the male protagonists, who again begin to conform to stereotype, although one or two of them would have been more interesting if they had been fleshed out a bit more. I liked the portrayal of Charlotte and Danielle’s relationship and the way their paths had diverged only to be brought back together in such difficult emotional circumstances. Charlotte herself exhibits a curious mix of strength and flakiness, that is so representative of the insecurities that women undergo in their twenties, seeking their place in the world, and being not altogether immune to the temptations that life that throw up, She was a likeable character throughout, despite moments of exasperation with her as she wandered blindly into moments of danger. I also thought the underlying angst and the exploration of the relationship between Danielle and her mother was incredibly well drawn, paying particular attention to the difficulties and jealousies that can place pressure on the mother and daughter bond. These parts of the narrative really gave a sense of depth to the book, as the central mystery of the reasons behind Danielle’s death became very obvious very quickly, and the emphasis on characterisation rather than the delineation of the plot itself led to a rather damp squib ending.

Always one to comment of the use of location in the book, and in this one Houston provides a smart backdrop to the book. In a recent interview Ginsburg, who was brought up in Houston but now lives elsewhere, says that she is almost re-imagining the city from her youth, and this is very evident in the book. The Houston we see through the different characters viewpoints and experience of it is a prism of the city as a whole, making it not strictly urban and not strictly rural, not completely moral, but underscored with social darkness. The city mirrors the moods and lives of the protagonists in Ginsburg’s portrayal of it, and this works incredibly well throughout, in this not altogether unsatisfying dark, violent and sexy tale. Worth a look.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before turning to crime, Melissa Ginsburg established herself as a poet. This has led some reviews to label Sunset City “poetic noir.” That sounds good but I don’t know where it gets us when considering what Ginsburg has accomplished with this novel. By page two, Charlotte Ford, Ginsburg’s narrator, learns that her best friend Danielle Reeves has been bludgeoned to death in a cheap motel room. She and Danielle, inseparable as teenagers and for a few years before Danielle’s bust for heroin possession, had largely lost touch during her imprisonment and since her release. They had reconnected just a day before the murder. Danielle’s wealthy mother needed to reach her estranged daughter, who now worked in internet porn, about an inheritance. Charlotte was the only connection the mother knew to reach out to.

Ginsburg is slotting everything into place for a noir narrative, but Charlotte will not be playing girl detective to solve a crime. Charlotte is drifting in her own life, working as a barista, drinking a lot, stuck with a feckless boyfriend. She will drift into Danielle’s world over the course of a boozy, drug-fueled week. Sunset City is character-driven noir, and what poetry there is shows up in each of Ginsburg’s complexly realized moments, whether they involve contemplating the dust on the top of a refrigerator or a Houston sunset enhanced by the pollution of oil refineries and cocaine.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Megan Abbott’s supportive blurb on the back of this book before I started it. By the end, I wish Megan Abbott had written it. It’s a familiar premise but tailor made for her gifts.

Melissa Ginsburg’s not a bad writer by any means. She really makes the city of Houston come alive: the sprawling highways, inexplicable traffic, bottomless amount of dive bars, sense of change while rooted in the familiar. But I had a hard time getting into this one, short as it is. And I think it’s because I couldn’t connect with the lead character.

Now I’ve enjoyed plenty of work around misanthropic, drugged-out female leads. Dope and Social Creature both immediately come to mind. But I felt there was no depth behind Charlotte. Ginsburg just kind of drags her from scene-to-scene as the story requires: she’s doing drugs here, she’s having sex there, she’s longing for her best friend, who was tragically bludgeoned to death. But I never felt like she raised the suspense to the point where it needed to be.

That could be in part because the killer was very obvious. I had a good idea of who it was half way through the book. Now, I’m not the type who needs to guess the murderer. I’m also not the type who needs to be surprised. I like a good story. But without suspense and a with a predictable reveal, the story fell flat. Melissa Ginsburg has talent around the edges, hence me still giving this three stars. I hope next time I read her, she can write a better story.

[Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished a quick read, her mystery debut, and previous effort a chapbook of poems. Noir set in the Houston underbelly, and the female protagonist is a tough girl who reverts a few days to a jag of drugs and sex, haunted by the murder of a friend from her juvenile days. Tough-girl book but very subtle insight on feminism and the small wonders of the world. The poetic insight and small-detail observations of the author comes through in the novel's prose. The mystery has good character development and a simple but good plot. Sunset City, by Melissa Ginsburg….a professor at Univ of MS in Oxford and a glowing jacket recommendation by Megan Abbott.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

My blurb: Sunset City is a boozy stumble through the lower depths of Houston, Texas, that is sometimes scary, sometimes funny, and sometimes unbearably sad, but never less than riveting. Melissa Ginsburg brings a poet’s eye and ear to this story of a young woman piecing together the circumstances of a friend’s death and depicts the damaged souls who haunt these pages with such grace and empathy that I found myself hoping against hope that at least some of them made it out of this mess alive.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25*

[David Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

So how is Houston emigrée poet Melissa Ginsburg's first novel? It's certainly entertaining enough for a fast reader to get through in a few sittings. At no time did I want to just leave my signed copy on a bench and let somebody else pick it up. I truly wanted to like it...but it didn't get my motor running. My literary ego is flattered that she has the protagonist's ex-boyfriend observe that Houston is "too small a town," to which the protagonist flatly replies, "There's six million people here." I am not so ego-driven as to conclude that the author has read my novel A Small Town for Its Size.

The reviews that I have read on Goodreads make some excellent points: The writing is solid, the pacing is mostly appropriate (sometimes slowing down when it really shouldn't), and the references to Inner Loop Houston locations will make any seasoned Inner Looper smile.

But for a book labeled "literary noir," I didn't find enough literary or noir in it to really dig it. It's not that the action is lacking in noir-ness. It is certainly a murder mystery, even if the detective is not the protagonist. The detective is, in fact, an HPD homicide investigator who drifts in and out of the story. Writing it from the point of view of the murder victim's young, smart, attractive friend, rather than the misanthropic detective, is a pretty cool twist.

I just didn't get the expected James M. Cain/Raymond Chandler flavors from the style. Literary fiction with some noir touches? Sure, that fits.

Even with scenes taking place in Houston's brutal daylight, the story is pretty dark, darker even than most noir. It explores an all-too-real Houston of alienation, cheap sex, hard drugs, and immense disparities of wealth.

Ginsburg sneaks some very descriptive writing into this first-person narrative. My favorite passage involves a description of a young, friendly cocaine dealer living in a crappy apartment in a nondescript district in the north suburbs:

Our host had a flat pale face and fauxhawked hair. His grin made him adorable in the way of children in cookie commercials and when it departed it left him bereft, with an assortment of random features that didn't quite add up to a face.

My main hang-up is the protagonist. Twenty-something barista Charlotte Ford is demonstrably smart but doesn't seem to know anything. She has lived inside the Loop all her life, but she doesn't know that she can buy fresh herbs at Whole Foods. Sometimes she lapses into college-level vocabulary, like the kid in your high school English class who didn't really study and somehow made A's; for the most part, however, she sticks to noir tradition, keeping her sentences short and free of ornamentation.

There is nothing really special or remarkable about Charlotte. She drinks too much and makes poor decisions. The world overwhelms her with its callousness and complexity. She is the spectator in life to whom, nonetheless, everything happens.

Charlotte stumbles through her own version of an investigation after troubled high school friend Danielle Reeves is found murdered and mutilated in a motel room. She has no idea what she's doing, or sometimes even that she's doing it. She operates almost entirely on instinct and gut reactions. She discovers that there are levels of fucked-upness to which her own fucked-up life can merely aspire.

While I smiled and nodded at the references to Houston landmarks—Memorial Park, the Galleria, the Heights, River Oaks, Hermann Park, the East End, Ninfa's on Navigation, the West Alabama Ice House, the Astro Motel on the North Freeway—I also found those references frustrating. This would be my second complaint.

If you don't live in Houston, you probably don't know what some of these places look like. For all the wonderful physical descriptions of the characters, Ginsburg does non-Houstonians (and even Harris County suburbanites) a disservice by not really transporting us to the West Alabama Ice House and other such landmarks.

Yes, there are spot-on remarks about the stifling homogeneity one sees the deeper one travels into suburbia. Yes, there's a wonderfully textural description of the shithole House of Pies from when Ginsburg last lived in Houston: before its interior was redone, before City Council made it illegal to smoke in eateries. But there is so much to the character of neighborhoods like the Heights, Montrose, Museum District, Near Northside, and East End that Charlotte doesn't get to convey for readers unfamiliar with those places.

Charlotte apparently lives in Montrose or the Museum District, within cycling distance of The Harp on Richmond, but I don't think I saw the word "Montrose" even once.

I hope that Ginsburg is on good terms with the people at House of Pies, which Charlotte flat-out refers to as a shithole. As I'm sure Ginsburg now knows, Houston Media Source hasn't been on Milam in the southeast corner of Montrose for many years.

My third hang-up is that Charlotte's small world within this gigantic small town is uncharacteristically white. Every speaking character is Euro-American, although there are hints that one or two are part Latin or Asian. Houston is known worldwide as a multi-cultural megalopolis, with more languages spoken here than New York City or Los Angeles. If you're going to use Houston as a setting, or cast it as a character, I recommend embracing the mix of cultures. Don't just sprinkle in references to Mexican kids at the washateria, Mexican housekeepers, Mexican landscapers in River Oaks (who actually are more likely Guatemalan or Honduran anyway).

Finally, this is not a spoiler: As I see it, the most interesting character in Sunset City turns out to be the murderer. I didn't find much to latch onto in the other characters.

[Megan Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew who did it! This was a quick read, and as usual, I felt the "resolution" was abrupt and the book ended in a weird way. It was easy to see how Charlotte could get wrapped up with the people that she did, but I'm not sure how they were all able to drive so well while on drugs....

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When this book arrived unsolicited I was positive it would be another mystery/thriller that wouldn’t interest me all that much. I wasn’t enthralled by Gone Girl. I need a bit more depth in my thrillers. Fortunately, the phenomenal writing and intriguing characters and plot grabbed me from page one. Author Melissa Ginsburg writes a taut, colorful and gritty noir. She highlights the darker side of Houston—the strip clubs, the dive bars, the run down neighborhoods, the places where average Americans scrape by on minimum wage work. The descriptions of both setting—“By morning the city was hot and muggy, awash in dirty yellow air.”--and the drug use “With one more bump the world drifted from the stream of regular existence. I loved the separateness of it. I smelled the cocaine in my nostrils, a plastic bitterness that repulsed me if I gave it any thought. Back at the picnic table I was jittery, excited.”-- take you right there.

A police detective shows up at Charlotte Ford’s house and she finds out that her high school friend Danielle Reeves was murdered. The now early twenty-somethings stopped hanging out when Danielle became addicted to heroin and went to prison. Danielle possessed a magnetic quality that attracted all types to her. Ford recalls: “Danielle was easily the coolest girl at our school. She wore outfits no one else could pull off—scarves and hats and glamorous upswept hair. She dressed for class like a movie star at some gala, and it seems elegant, never pretentious. Sometimes being around her made me feel sparkly, too.” Several days before Danielle’s murder, the two old friends met for a drink and Charlotte thought they might move beyond the past and become close again.

Danielle supported Charlotte when her alcoholic mother got sick and later died. Charlotte spent lots of time at Danielle’s house. Danielle partly escaped into drugs and the sex industry due to her overbearing and wealthy mother. Lately every novel unfolds from several points of view, often trading chapters back and forth between different characters. I’m getting a bit tired of this style. It’s refreshing and fitting that this story is told in first-person by Charlotte. Readers will feel empathy for Charlotte and her hard knock life. She’s gutsy and resilient which ensures an immensely readable and compelling read.

“I never got addicted to drugs when Danielle did. After a couple of days of being high, I wanted a break. I craved order, time alone, exercise. Danielle just wanted more pills. I knew it wasn’t any kind of strength of character. I wasn’t better than her. We both did whatever we felt like. It was only luck that what I wanted was not as dangerous.”

A bereft Charlotte decides to spend time in the places and with the people that Danielle did in order to understand how she possibly could have ended up viciously murdered in a crappy hotel room. Charlotte delves into the drug scene again as she hangs out with Danielle’s friends and at places Danielle frequented. She spends quite a bit of time and enjoys a physical connection with Audrey who worked at the same porn company as Danielle. She meets Danielle’s manager Brandon. But she also speaks with and shares an attraction with the handsome detective intent to solve the case. Besides tons of drug use, there’s lots of raw, hot sex. Will Charlotte get hurt as she delves into this debased underworld or will she find answers and peace?

--review by Amy Steele

received this book for review from Ecco

review posted here: https://entertainmentrealm.com/2016/0...

[chantellekitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fast paced novel following Charlotte’s when she finds out her old school friend, Danielle, is murdered who she only reunited with two days beforehand.

We follow Charlotte finding out who Danielle really was now that it had been years since they were friends. All the new people in her life, the drugs and sex work she had been doing and how she’d grown as a person.

This was a murder mystery which I believe was a good story. It was filled with drugs and sex which isn’t my usual go to murder mystery but I enjoyed it! The ending wasn’t too exciting, I wasn’t shocked at who turned out to be the murder, but the journey getting there was still good.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

FICTION/SUSPENSE
Melissa Ginsburg
Sunset City
Ecco, 978-0-06-242970-4, hardcover (also available as an ebook, an audio book, and on Audible), 208 pgs., $25.99
April 12, 2016

“Houston was always flooding, the whole city built atop paved wetlands. The storm kept the sky dark, and the streetlights glowed through the morning. I stepped into my rubber boots and splashed to the barbecue shack around the corner.”

When Charlotte Ford returns to her apartment with her brisket and beer, Detective Ash is waiting on the landing to tell her that Danielle, her friend since high school, has been found bludgeoned to death in a seedy motel room. Danielle and her mother, Sally, have been estranged for years but Sally has recently contacted Charlotte, offering her a $1,000 bribe for Danielle’s phone number, so she could tell Danielle about an inheritance. Charlotte has met Danielle for a drink just a few days before her death to tell her about Sally and offer her half the money.

Charlotte has thought Danielle’s stint in prison had finally cured her of the drugs and her future looked brighter, even if she has been “modeling” in porn films with her new friends. As Charlotte simultaneously searches for answers and tries to escape her feelings with vodka that “tasted like air-conditioning, crisp and clean” and cocaine like “fluorescent light in my bloodstream,” she moves ever closer to the killer and becomes a target herself.

Sunset City, poet Melissa Ginsburg’s first novel, is a soulful, sexy, dangerous noir. In all good noir the location is an essential character in the story—and Houston’s slippery underbelly fits the bill. It’s all here: the bayous, ship channel refineries, Memorial Park, River Oaks, Montrose, Rudyard’s, and, always, real estate, in a city “that never stopped, it reached and reached,” where money exerts a “gravitational pull.” Ginsburg’s simple plot allows atmosphere to suffuse the story. You’ll feel the humidity on your upper lip and see the vivid, chemical sunsets for which the book is named.

Charlotte, the most fully developed character, is sympathetic but frustrating in her self-destruction, as if she wants to beat someone else to the punch, feeling like “a poison I couldn’t stop swallowing.” She comes undone in the immediate aftermath of Danielle’s murder, on a drug and booze-soaked mental flight, trying to numb her grief. Ginsburg writes one of the best altered states I’ve ever read, both darkly humorous and melancholy, when Charlotte ends up in the drunk tank and it becomes “clear that someone, at some point during the night, had made a bad decision.”

As befits a poet, Ginsburg is a master of the startlingly evocative turn of phrase. Charlotte’s first-person narrative is littered with them. She observes of a man in a bar that she’s not particularly interested in: “He was boring, but I didn’t mind, because his attention was interesting.” Detective Ash “stared at me like you would a sculpture, without caring what it thought.” After viewing crime-scene photos, Charlotte observes that Danielle’s “fake boobs sat on top of the wrecked body, intact, pointing the wrong way.” Talk about verisimilitude.

Ginsburg presents a menu of suspects and drops clues nonchalantly—expertly—as if she’s writing a fifth noir, not a first. She has created a page-turner with a pitch-perfect conclusion. Sunset City is poetry noir.

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I primarily read crime fiction, I'm not wedded to the genre. I read and review books from across the spectrum - horror, crime (obviously), literature. And to be honest I don't always understand the distinction. A number of so called literature novels have a crime at their heart. One could think of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. But what about Aravand Adiga's Booker nominated White Tiger, the protagonist of which murders his boss? Or Mohammed Hanif’s The Case of Exploding Mangoes, which focuses on the shenanigans surroundings the mysterious death of Pakistan's President Zia, and speculates as to his assassination? Then there are crime novels which appear more literary, in which mold I would place Sunset City.

For to me, Melissa Ginsberg has penned a contemplation to loss, bereavement, regret. There is a crime at the centre of this tale, the death of the protagonist's best friend, Danielle Reeves, a charismatic woman who fell into drugs and the underbelly of vice in Houston, Texas. And the blurb promises us an investigation, hints that our protagonist, Charlotte Ford, will immerse herself in this world to get to the truth. But this is misleading. For what Charlotte really does over 250 odd pages, is struggle to understand the life Danielle lived. Charlotte is equal parts fascinated by her friend’s life and appalled by the manner in which she died, falling in with Danielle’s equally alluring but anguished stripper friend, Audrey. In this twilight world of sordid adult entertainment, Charlotte meets an unwholesome cast of pornographers, drugs dealers and addicts.

But at no point does Charlotte actively investigate Danielle’s murder, which in the main occurs "off page". She meets with the officer leading the investigation, Detective Ash. She conveys leads to him, much of which turn out to be correct, but she picks these up quite by accident through her normal interactions with people from Danielle’s world.

Here then is the strength of Sunset City. In Charlotte Ford we have a regular and three dimensional woman. She has no super powers of deduction, no unarmed combat prowess, or experience of firearms. She doesn't doggedly pursue villains or bring outlaws to justice. Rather she reacts as any one of us might in such extraordinary circumstances, with bewilderment, sorrow and tribulation. She struggles to understand how this could have happened to someone so full of life as Danielle and it is this sense of despondency that drives the narrative.

In some ways Charlotte is a curiously passive character, but only if the reader were to judge Sunset City against other, more traditional, crime novels. And this here is my problem with the book. It's not that it's a bad read, it isn't, it's actually very good. But it's been miscast. My concern is that marketed as it is as a crime novel, those readers seeking such a book will find themselves disappointed. Where this really belongs is on the literature shelves where it would shine. For Mellissa Ginsberg has written a powerful meditation on how an ordinary woman faces emotional turmoil in the face of a horrific murder which ruptures the equilibrium of her world.

[Kat Stromquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Sunset City, Melissa Ginsburg exploits the anonymity of Houston. Its generic nowhere-ness, its tendency to seem like not much more than a bunch of skyscrapers around an airport hub, creates an engaging backdrop for a crime novel. The sprawl becomes both general and specific: it’s shadowy and run-down like the setting for any noir, but the dive bars, sketchy coke dealers and endless looping miles of lamp-lit highway feel textured and real. You get the feeling Ginsburg, who grew up in Houston, did time on every sticky bar stool she describes.

Sunset City is sort of an atmospheric murder mystery. It’s light on plot but heavy on mood, and the mood is heavy: when protagonist Charlotte’s childhood best friend Danielle turns up dead, Charlotte starts hanging out with the addicts and internet porn auteurs who were Danielle’s friends. There’s a lot of partying involved. Ginsburg has a gift for describing the contradictions of late nights, when stupid questions start to seem like profound meditations on life. (Charlotte reflects on outer space: “[My] question was like a koan, except that it was science; I had simply forgotten the answer.”)

Along the way, Charlotte tries to figure out what happened to Danielle, with occasional drop-in appearances by a good-looking detective who may or may not be trying to help. But we spend the majority of our time in Charlotte’s unhappy head. Ginsburg has a sharp eye for the inconsistencies and unfairness of grief — like when Charlotte mentally thanks her mother for waiting to overdose until after she, Charlotte, turned 18. It’s the kind of darkly realistic calculation we make in the privacy of our own minds.

This is Ginsburg’s first novel (she’s the author of a full-length poetry collection and a chapbook), and its biggest flaw is its brevity. It’s a toothsome crime story that would be great on a long flight or at the beach, but it peters out in just under two hundred pages. It makes you wonder what Ginsburg could do if she pinned a more involved story on the hulking, moody backdrop of Houston-after-hours. Regardless, this is a promising fiction debut from a writer who seems destined for bigger things, if not bigger cities.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sunset City is a tour de force in noir fiction. Grity, dark and full of secrets, it is a very well written debut novel.

I don’t tend to read many novels that fall into the noir genre if I’m honest, they just aren’t something I would pick up normally. However, after reading Sunset City I would definitely be interested in reading more.

Melissa Ginsburg writes exceptionally well, capturing those years in your twenties where you are essentially coasting through life with no definitive aim as such. Charlotte is the epitome of this. Casual drug use, drinking and sex feature heavily in Sunset City, but it’s not overdone in any way.

Dealing with the murder of one of her friends, with whom she had recently reconnected, causes Charlotte to question if she was the reason for Danielle’s death. In the aftermath of this, Charlotte immerses herself into Danielle’s life, and this leads her further down the rabbit hole of excess.

The author has done a great job capturing the inertia of life, even in a city as large as Houston. It was very easy to identify with Charlotte’s frustrations, and her reactions in the course of the novel. I thoroughly enjoyed being immersed in her world.

Sunset City is a superb debut. I devoured it fairly quickly as I was unwell so I was thankful to have a great book for company. Melissa Ginsburg is definitely an author to watch out for, I can see her doing so well if this is her debut!

[Leah Moyse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very unusual, it is like nothing I have read before. It is pitted as a crime novel and that it is but I would suggest it also fits very nicely into the noir genre. It is dark, gritty and seedy, although not fast paced I still found it a high octane thriller.

This novel is set around a murder, but also is a story of friendship. It puts under the microscope the fact that if certain people are friends it is bad for them and actions and consequences can occur, like a chain or falling dominoes.

This book is packed full of flawed characters who have all been damaged by life's experiences and who currently don't seem to be making the right decisions. These decisions have an impact on everybody, themselves and those around them.

This is about one friend trying to subtly find the killer of her best friend, like it is an absolute obsession. I am almost sure that Charlotte adored Danielle in a way that is not emotionally healthy.

The author writes well. I found the writing to be quite beautiful and sparse in places and this made the story take on a very sad and melancholy tone, even with the gritty undertones running through. She writes with great complexity and emotional depth. I thought it was a very clever style of writing, that worked in order to get the story across.

I found this book to be intelligently written and highly original. I would recommend this book if you like crime novels and fancy trying something a bit different.

[Rachel Chiapparine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked up this book in the Nook store on my tablet because it was on sale for $1.99 and it seemed interesting, my personal review of the book is as follows:

I liked the writing style especially how it really made me feel like I was there in the gritty underworld with the characters however I personally felt like the storyline was really rushed and had way too many times where it went into things that felt like tangents that wouldn't have been so bad if the story would have been longer.

I feel like the took away time that could have supported more depth of both character and storyline. The ending also felt very rushed and abrupt, almost like the entire story was the first few chapters of a bigger book. Overall I personally rate this book a a 3 and half out 10 because of how much I liked the the atmosphere.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Closer to 3.75 Stars). I enjoyed this book very much. Possibly more because I used to live in that area, and that's always fun, but it was good. It was a quick read, not a very long novel, but not quite a novella. The language was spare, but lyrical. Very atmospheric. If I hadn't already known it was Houston, I would've guessed. The descriptions really worked, and without using too many words to set the scene. To the point, and not overly done. To say she writes like a female Hemingway would be not quite right, but not completely wrong, either. I liked it enough that I would read her second novel. I think this is a very good first book, and I'm genuinely interested to see what her second one would look like.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ginsburg described Houston sunsets as being emblematic of the city. They are fleeting moments of beauty with brilliant splashes of color refracted by pollution across the vast expanses of sky between widely spaced buildings, which we usually witness courtesy of being stuck in traffic on the freeways that rise over the flat topography. At the end of every day, something wonderful happens above our heads before it collapses into light-polluted darkness, and its root cause are the host of complex problems taking place below. To me, this metaphor captures what it means to live here. I'm proud of where I'm from, despite its problems, and finally, here is a novel that reflects my city. You always vet someone from your hometown, and I can confirm Ginsburg is one of our own.

[John Spiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a Houston native, I wanted to like "Sunset City." Yes, Houston features prominently, but nothing about the story feels particularly "Houston". A church next to the West Alabama Ice House? C'mon. Geographic quibbles and disappointments aside, there really wasn't much of story or developed characters for that matter. We end up learning more about the murder victim than any of the 1.75 dimensional (i.e. not quite two-dimensional) characters. While I think it is possible to populate a book with only unlikable characters, as was done in "Sunset City," I insist that the author at least make us care about someone. I loathed everyone in "Sunset City." I am grading on a generous Houston-friendly curve.

[Cora · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw some people reacting to SUNSET CITY by saying, "Can you believe that this is her first novel?" Answer: Sure can. Ginsburg is good at atmosphere and place and an intimate psychological writing style, but the story is thin and the climax doesn't really land. (It is more convincing as a depiction of a troubled young woman's last weekend than it is as a crime novel.) Would not be surprised to learn that her follow up is great, but this needed more substance.

[Lauren Poole · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a lot of potential but felt rushed tbh, and the big reveal was disappointingly easy to figure out towards the last chapters, so the ending was a bit anticlimactic. I also agreed with another reviewer who said that the same-sex storyline was used as a symbol of the main character gOiNg tO tHe dARk SiDe before a nice comfortable return to heteronormativity. It was really unrealistic at the beginning (and throughout, but especially In the first chapter) - to the point where it was difficult to keep reading because it was so ridiculous and impossible to believe. I did find some of the passages about grief and emotion moving and well written, though.

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so well written and the prose was so elegant, it hooked you in right from the beginning and even though Charlotte's world was a bit extreme at times, it didn't feel that way because you wanted to know how her best friend died and follow her as she figured it out. I was pleasantly surprised by the reveal of the killer at the end and how Charlotte was able to escape her hard life.

It was a great read, short but sweet. The work speaks for itself! I look forward to more books by Melissa Ginsburg.

[Elaine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not thrilling, not a mystery and definitely not erotic.

Lots of boozing, drugging, self hate, self harm and sexual abuse.

Poorly rendered characters, cliche and stereotypical and badly written. Maybe its because the main character didn't go to college though she mentions she got good grades and did well in school. Guess all that drugging turned her language skills to mush.

Only reason I finished: Short book.