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    The Little Men
    The Little Men
    The Little Men
    Ebook62 pages44 minutes

    The Little Men

    By Megan Abbott

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    In 1950s Hollywood, an actress is haunted by a bookseller’s death: A novella from the Edgar Award-winning author of Give Me Your Hand.
     
    In 1953, Penny is just another washed-up, wannabe Hollywood actress who is past her prime. She has settled in to a quiet lifestyle, and when she finds a low-rent bungalow in Canyon Arms, it’s a dream come true; Penny takes to the place instantly.
     
    But the dream cottage with its French doors and tiled courtyard may not be as perfect as it seems. Penny’s new neighbors start filling her head with stories about past tenants, whispering voices, and a suicide that may not have been a suicide at all. Soon enough, Penny starts hearing strange noises and she can’t help but wonder about the true fate of the bookseller who died in her home a dozen years earlier. Her suspicions are only fueled by the ominous inscription that she discovers in a book that’s closely guarded by her landlord . . .
     
    From the national bestselling author of Dare Me and other thrillers, this is a spooky mystery set on the dark fringes of glamorous Los Angeles.

    The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMysteriousPress.com Open Road
    Release dateSep 15, 2015
    ISBN9781504019118
    The Little Men
    Author

    Megan Abbott

    Megan Abbott is an award-winning author of noir fiction including Queenpin and Bury Me Deep (nominated for the Edgar Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize). Her novel The End of Everything was a Richard and Judy selection and Dare Me was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger. She is also the author of the gripping psychological thrillers, The Fever and You Will Know Me. She is co-writer of the smash-hit Sky Atlantic drama, The Deuce. Born in the Detroit area, she now lives in Queens, New York City.

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    Reviews for The Little Men

    3.5/5

    26 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is actually a short story --- in fact it was included in Otto Penzler's "Best Of..." annual surveys in 2014. It's one of those stories where, if you consider the various options open to the narrator/central character, and decide which is the worst decision she could make -- well, of course, that's the decision she does make. The ending was quite good, though.
    • 3/5
      Nice novella set up in 50’s Hollywood about a failed actress who rents a bungalow with a past. And although books are less prevalent here than in other Bibliomysteries titles (and I missed them), this story, with its mixture of noir and spooky elements, turns out to be a gripping and entertaining short read with a moving ending.
    • 4/5
      This is just a short story, but it was satisfying! I really enjoyed the old Hollywood setting (I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts about this Hollywood era), and could perfectly picture the Canyon Arms in my head. Abbott keeps you guessing, even at the end. Is Penny a reliable narrator? Is she crazy? Is it gas? Is it ghosts? Is the landlady messing with her? What about those guys next door? Abbott takes you on a brief but wild ride through this time in Penny’s life. This was easily read on a weekend morning, and was well worth the time.

    Book preview

    The Little Men - Megan Abbott

    At night, the sounds from the canyon shifted and changed. The bungalow seemed to lift itself with every echo and the walls were breathing. Panting.

    Just after two, she’d wake, her eyes stinging, as if someone had waved a flashlight across them.

    And then, she’d hear the noise.

    Every night.

    The tapping noise, like a small animal trapped behind the wall.

    That was what it reminded her of. Like when she was a girl, and that possum got caught in the crawlspace. For weeks, they just heard scratching. They only found it when the walls started to smell.

    It’s not the little men, she told herself. It’s not. And then she’d hear a whimper and startle herself. Because it was her whimper and she was so frightened.

    I’m not afraid I’m not I’m not

    It had begun four months ago, the day Penny first set foot in the Canyon Arms. The chocolate and pink bungalows, the high arched windows and French doors, the tiled courtyard, cosseted on all sides by eucalyptus, pepper, and olive trees, miniature date palms—it was like a dream of a place, not a place itself.

    This is what it was supposed to be, she thought.

    The Hollywood she’d always imagined, the Hollywood of her childhood imagination, assembled from newsreels: Kay Francis in silver lamé and Clark Gable driving down Sunset in his Duesenberg, everyone beautiful and everything possible.

    That world, if it ever really existed, was long gone by the time she’d arrived on that Greyhound a half-dozen years ago. It had been swallowed up by the clatter and color of 1953 Hollywood, with its swooping motel roofs and shiny glare of its hamburger stands and drive-ins, and its descending smog, which made her throat burn at night. Sometimes she could barely breathe.

    But here in this tucked away courtyard, deep in Beachwood Canyon, it was as if that Old Hollywood still lingered, even bloomed. The smell of apricot hovered, the hush and echoes of the canyons soothed. You couldn’t hear a horn honk, a brake squeal. Only the distant ting-ting of window chimes, somewhere. One might imagine a peignoired Norma Shearer drifting through the rounded doorway of one of the bungalows, cocktail shaker in hand.

    It’s perfect, Penny whispered, her heels tapping on the Mexican tiles. I’ll take it.

    That’s fine, said the landlady, Mrs. Stahl, placing Penny’s cashier’s check in the drooping pocket of her satin housecoat and handing her the keyring, heavy in her palm.

    The scent, thick with pollen and dew, was enough to make you dizzy with longing.

    And so close to the Hollywood sign, visible from every vantage, which had to mean something.

    She had found it almost by accident, tripping out of the Carnival Tavern after three stingers.

    We’ve all been stood up, the waitress had tut-tutted, snapping the bill holder at her hip. But we still pay up.

    I wasn’t stood up, Penny said. After all, Mr. D. had called, the hostess summoning Penny to one of the hot telephone booths. Penny was still tugging her skirt free from its door hinges when he broke it to her.

    He wasn’t coming tonight and wouldn’t be coming again. He had many reasons why, beginning with his busy work schedule, the demands of the studio, plus negotiations with the union were going badly. By the time he got around to the matter of his wife and six children, she wasn’t listening, letting the phone drift from her ear.

    Gazing through the booth’s glass accordion doors, she looked out at the long row of spinning lanterns strung along the bar’s windows. They reminded her of the magic

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