Books
DOROTHY B. HUGHES was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and lived most of her life in New Mexico. A journalist and a poet (a book of her verse was published in the Yale Younger Poets Series), she began publishing mystery novels in the 1940s.
In a Lonely Place
Afterword by Lisa Maria Hogeland
Postwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where the American Dream is showing its seamy underside—and a stranger is preying on young women. The suggestively names Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray—a femme fatale with brains—something begins to crack. The basis for extraordinary performances by Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in the 1950 film version, In a Lonely Place tightens the suspence with taut, hard-boiled prose and stunningly undoes the convential noir plot.
"A tour de force laying open the mind and motives of a killer with extraordinary empathy. The structure is flawless, and the scenes of postwar L.A. have an immediacy that puts Chandler to shame. No wonder Hughes is the master we keep turning to."
"A superb novel by one of crime fiction's finest writers of psychological suspense. . . . What a pleasure it is to see this tale in print once again!"
"This lady is the queen of noir, and In a Lonely Place is her crown."
Also Of Interest
- Bunny Lake Is Missing
- Evelyn Piper
- Laura
- Vera Caspary
- The Blackbirder
- Dorothy Hughes
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