This is another random used-book store find, a hardboiled thriller of 1940s vintage, about a man who escapes from a two-year sojourn in a horrible Spanish prison, where he was tormented for unspecified information by a person of shuffling gait that he called "the Wobblefoot." Back in New York, wh...
“Once he’d had happiness but for so brief a time; happiness was made of quicksilver, it ran out of your hand like quicksilver. There was the heat of tears suddenly in his eyes and he shook his head angrily. He would not think about it, he would never think of that again. It was long ago in an anc...
To stop a Communist plot, a secretive man searches Los Angeles for a confidential report When bad weather forces his flight to Los Angeles to land outside of town, Steve Wintress agrees to share a car with three travelers: a shy young soldier, a Justice Department official, and an icy Hollywood...
I do not understand that Mysterious Press cover. Is it some weird attempt to sell the book as ‘chick lit’? Because too many ‘modern’ men are going to be terrified of a book with ‘pink’ in the title already. This is a gritty and atmospheric novel that showcases Hughes skill at rendering lost men s...
The critic HRF Keating chose The Expendable Man as one of his Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books. ‘A late addition to the thirteen crime stories Dorothy B Hughes wrote with great success in one prolific spell between 1940 and 1952,’ it was, in his view, her best book. But it is far more than a c...
It was nine and the sun was quick on the deceptive peace of the Pacific. She must have slept or morning wouldn't be. here. Her heart was clenched within her, wondering where he might be. One radio man had already disappeared. And then she heard his voice. There was no accent of trouble in it; she...
He’d overslept. Only a froth of yellow hair was visible above the blankets on the other bed. He showered, dressed rapidly. He was knotting his tie when she spoke. “Where are you going?” Her eyes were sleep-clouded. “Out.” She said, “Oh,” burrowed under the covers. He put the gun into his right ha...
JOHNNIE GROANED. “What’s the big idea?” Mike doubled his fists. “The big idea is that you’re to put your hands out in front of you and climb up those stairs.” She was little but there was nothing soft about her voice or the gun. “You need some help, Trudy?” There was someone behind the chenille c...
Somehow she had fallen asleep last night, despite her fears after they went away. Despite her heavy heart, her bewilderment. She must have slept because she was on the bed and morning was coming through the windows. She flung wide the casements overlooking the park. The moist clean after-smell of...
They were featuring the imminent International Peace Conclave as if nothing untoward had happened. Perhaps the secret had been kept; perhaps the press didn’t know that Anstruther was missing. Brecklein had arrived and—his nostrils narrowed—the dirty Schern. That arrogant sentimentalist, Dessaye, ...
Breakfast and lunch were one in the old Spanish kitchen which served as the Cantina. Afterward she walked into the patio, dallied over a cigarette in the bright, hot sun. She didn't want to leave this pleasant town. She didn't want to go to Santa Fe. Something held her back, perhaps the grim woma...
He saw her shining face. “Beautiful,” he said. —2— Mrs. Shellabarger said to Mr. Shellabarger, “Isn’t it exciting being on the same train with so many movie people?” Mr. Shellabarger said, “I never could shave on a train without cutting myself.” —3— James Cobbett stood on the brick walk in the Al...
But not as raspingly as the names he was calling himself. The bright guy. The kid with the medals. The prize package of the cloak-and-dagger boys. So he stood there and handed the package over to the old man’s granddaughter. Whoever didn’t want that package delivered didn’t need to strongarm Jose...