A Kiss Before Dying (novel)
Burton “Bud” Corliss is a young man with a ruthless drive to rise above his working-class origins to a life of wealth and importance.He serves in the Pacific in World War II, and upon his honorable discharge in 1947 he learns that his father was killed in an automobile accident while he was overseas.The most pivotal moment in his life occurs during the war, when he first wounds, then kills, a Japanese sniper, who is so terrified that he wets his pants and begs for mercy.Corliss is elated by the total power he holds over the soldier; at the same time, he is disgusted by the man's display of abject terror.Resolving to get rid of Dorothy, he tricks her into writing a letter that, to an unknowing observer, would look like a suicide note, and then throws her from the roof of a tall building.Days before the wedding, he shows up at the Kingship family home and presents Marion and her father with the evidence of Corliss' deception.Horror author Stephen King called Levin’s first novel “a gritty suspense story told with great élan.” He describes the novel as unique in the sense that a key element of the story—a revelation about who committed a particular murder—takes the reader by complete surprise.