Megan Abbott’s new thriller is ‘Get Out’ for the post-Roe era. She wrote it before Dobbs

On the Shelf Beware the Woman By Megan Abbott Putnam: 304 pages, $28 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. “When she arrives, she’s trying to figure out this family, a little community if you will.” Books Megan Abbott writes bestsellers about bad people. Look out, she’s coming to L.A. By the time Megan Abbott first came to Los Angeles, she had already written a book set in the city — her 2005 debut, “Die a Little.” Little of the Ash family history is known to Jacy — or us — before we meet Jed’s father. “The notion that Jacy’s body might be controlled by other people feels bigger and scarier,” Abbott says, than the threat of any self-inflicted injury. “It developed from movies and books,” says Abbott, who grew up in Grosse Pointe, Mich., and received her doctorate in English from the University of Michigan, where her dissertation focused on that most Angeleno of genres, noir: “That light and dark glamour and dread in the best noir contains all sorts of extremes.” Books The Ultimate LA Bookshelf: Mystery & Crime The 13 most essential L.A. crime books — from Chandler, Hughes, Mosley and Ellroy to Steph Cha and Ivy Pochoda, with some ‘Helter Skelter’ in between.