by The Feminist Press at CUNY. Like a bell buoy in sea fog, this noir classic guides the reader through treacherous waters by striking it's one note loud and clear and...with a regularity that quickly becomes predictable. Such a refreshing change to read a crime novel without all of the gory blood and violent details.

To his mind nothing has come close to matching “that feeling of power and exhilaration and freedom that came with loneness in the sky.” He prowls the foggy city night—­bus stops and stretches of darkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out—seeking solitary young women.

Noir the way noir should be. Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a city of promise and prosperity, but not for former fighter pilot Dix Steele. I particularly enjoyed how Hughes subverts some of the tropes of this genre, like the femme fatale, and avoids melodramatic, theatrical storytelling by placing us in the mind of the killer. The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect. Why does he always get a raw deal? I died when you left me.

In a Lonely Place is a gripping story, but Hughes was too talented, ambitious, and grounded to play it merely for suspense….as Megan Abbott points out in her splendidly perceptive afterword, Hughes takes the gender clichés of noir and turns them on their head."

I purchased the novel when it was offered as a Kindle Daily Deal recently. If you were a single gal living in post-war Los Angeles you’d probably find Dix Steele absolutely dreamy. By the end of the first chapter we are in no doubt as to what Dix Steele is, someone who is most certainly a leech and evil. Set in LA is it s short and exciting read.

It is a gateway through which we might access her particular view of that road between our glittering versions of American life and the darker reality that waits at the end of the ride.—Walter Mosley, This lady is the queen of noir, and In A Lonely Place is her crown.—Laurie R. King, author of the Mary Russell novels, A superb novel by one of crime fiction's finest writers of psychological suspense. Full stop -- Sara Weinman. Born in Kansas City, she studied at Columbia University, and won an award from the Yale Series of Younger Poets for her first book, the poetry collection, “I was born when you kissed me.

Start by marking “In a Lonely Place” as Want to Read: Error rating book. Read this on the way to LA recently, because that's where the book is set. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.”, “I was born when he kissed me, I died when he left me, I lived a few weeks while he loved me”, Pages of Noir: The Books that Became Film Noir (fiction), JUNE 2020: In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, December 2019 Group Reads - In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, In a Lonely Place: In Progress (No Spoilers), Killing the 'Dead Girl' Theme in Crime Fiction. Previous page of related Sponsored Products, Penguin Classics; 01 Edition (6 May 2010), Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2018, ‘The criminal doesn’t escape’ … ‘He has to live with himself. Try again. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the lus. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.

His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. In a Lonely Place (Penguin Modern Classics), Choose from over 13,000 locations across the UK, Prime members get unlimited deliveries at no additional cost, Dispatch to this address when you check out. Brian Dillon's remarkable new essay collection, Suppose a Sentence, was published in late September, and the reviews are steadily rolling in! When the mist cleared, there I was, still standing on the dock. A great Psychological thriller unlike anything that I have read. And we get the. This would make a good book club read given how unique the approach is and how real the characters are. For example, in the film, despite being a violent man with a hot temper, Steele is innocent of the murders he's suspected of committing, and is sincere in his desire to be a successful screenwriter; in the novel, he is a sociopath who claims to be a crime novel writer in order to sponge off of relatives. An effective use of an unreliable narrator which is cleverly conceived by the author. "One of the best portraits of a psychopathic killer in American crime fiction" (Marcia Muller).

'Puts Chandler to shame ... Hughes is the master we keep turning to'Sara Paretsky.



For one thing, her female characters are fantastic.

He was a fighter pilot in the war, and now he’s working on writing a mystery novel so he’s certainly leading a colorful and interesting life. He’s caught there in that lonely place.’ (p. 74), Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2020.

It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness. Along the way he meets the luscious Laurel Gray—the femme fatale. ... A Gritty Crim... My favourite crime writer. [ primary of these for me being the assumed identity, with the car, the apartment and the clothes of one of his victims. The tension in the book comes from spotting if or when he makes a mistake and reveals himself. It is a dark, cold gem of a book, a gem without a flicker of heat or light. At times you suspect he may be involved in the series of crimes that are committed, while at other times you are made to doubt your own instincts. This is first-class noir. Fabulous novel full of pace and tension which placed you right inside the head of the killer. Dorothy B Hughes will always be remembered primarily for her fourteen hardboiled and crime noir novels, with this particular novel most definitely falling into the latter category.

Post World War II Los Angeles, the place you go to find the great American dream, but a stranger is preying on young women. "In a Lonely Place", first published in 1947, tells the story of Dix Steele, a dilettante New Yorker recently moved to Los Angeles who is keenly following the actions of an as yet uncaught serial killer.

It must be a statutory requirement for modern psychological thriller writers to read, If Mickey Spillane had named one of his heroes "Dix Steele," it would leave me shaking my head and rolling my eyes, but when Dorothy B. Hughes gives the name to a serial rapist and killer, I nod and smile. I loved this and can’t wait to read more from Hughes. ', In a Lonely Place is an excellent example of hard-boiled, LA Noir.

Unable to add item to List. Deliciously dark prose, taut dialogue, sex, murder; this female-authored noir has it all in spades, set in post-WWII Los Angeles, awash in emasculated paranoia of the returned soldier. 'Fear was a girl whispering a word over and over again, a small word you refused to hear although the whisper was a scream in your ears, a dreadful scream you could never forget. Just one problem. and over 8 million other books are available for, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. This title can be purchased from your favorite e-book retailer, including, rkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out—seeking solitary young women. She wrote in the 1940's in the time of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett and really holds her own. Approved third parties also use these tools in connection with our display of ads.

Although the violence almost exclusively takes place in the periphery, it is ever present the interactions Dix Steele has with his friends and lover. Prime members enjoy fast & free shipping, unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Prime Video and many more exclusive benefits. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in. What truly sets it apart is the prose style: so elegant and sculpted. Aftershocks of this book can be felt in the writings of, This is not a whodunit. This shopping feature will continue to load items when the Enter key is pressed. By goodness, modern authors take note. Postwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where the American Dream is showing its seamy underside—and a stranger is preying on young women. November 1st 2003 Hughes is an expert at building tension. Click here to order. First the bottom line: I loved this novel.

They are strong women who do not simper and hide behind men. The queen of noir, Dorothy B. Hughes blends psychological suspense with conventional Hard-boiled and Noir styles to give us In a Lonely Place.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 August 2018.

Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. To me she had the sense of place and the narrative drive of Eric Ambler-tautened by a woman's edginess.

I decided on reading Dorothy B. Hughes's In a Lonely Place, this year after hearing from Cassio, a Goodreads friend, recommending it and thinking it was something I would enjoy. Of all her books this is the most famous and most popular, and it is easy to see why. Recommended. We use cookies and similar tools to enhance your shopping experience, to provide our services, understand how customers use our services so we can make improvements, and display ads. Her ability to communicate perceptions is incredible. His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 August 2020, It would not be a spoiler to tell you that the narrator is a seriel killer. I had never heard of the author before, but liked the book's blurb.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 August 2020. Dorothy Hughes narrates the mind of a killer better than any author I've read. Refresh and try again. To be a female writer of hard-boiled fiction back in the 1940s was unusual enough, but to write a first-person narrative form the viewpoint of a male serial killer was breaking new ground by anybody's standards.—Max Déecharné author of Hardboiled Hollywood: The Origins of Great Crime Films, In Hughes's novel, however, there is not a drop of romanticism, not a touch of fantasy. There's a problem loading this menu at the moment. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. What a bargain. It reads like something from Patricia Highsmith, with its focus on exploring the mind of a sociopath, but actually predates Highsmith's first novel by three years or so. This novel from Dorothy Hughes, a portrait of a sociopath in post-WWII Los Angeles, was very loosely adapted in to the under-appreciated noir classic movie directed by Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. Welcome back.

Written with controlled elegance, Dorothy B. Hughes’s tense novel is at once an early indictment of a truly toxic masculinity and a twisty page-turner with a surprisingly feminist resolution. ISBN: 9781681371474 My introduction to Dorothy B. Hughes is In a Lonely Place, her 1947 crime novel that upon its reissue in 2017 by New York Review Books Classics with an afterword by Megan Abbott, launched magnificent reappraisals by NPR, the Paris Review, Vice and others as groundbreaking noir with a feminist twist. "In a Lonely Place", first published in 1947, tells the story of Dix Steele, a dilettante New Yorker recently moved to Los Angeles who is keenly following the actions of an as yet uncaught serial killer. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. We’d love your help. They have been through WWII and have strong goals and ideas and actually do something about them. 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 of the book.