Dorothy Hughes is on the cusp of hard-boiled, I think, and
the psychological thriller. I didn't care for _In a Lonely
Place_ because SO MUCH of it was about what was going on in
people's heads -- not enough externality for me, somehow.
_Ride the Pink Horse_, on the other hand, is pretty
hard-boiled ... familiar stock characters (cops, big city
criminals on the lam) set in darkly unfamiliar and exotic
locations. It unfolds a little more slowly than your typical
toughguy novel, but it's totally worth it.
And I wish almost every day that Leigh Brackett had kept at
the crime fiction more diligently. Some of her stories, esp.
"So Pale, So Cold, So Fair," are masterpieces. I may have
mentioned this several years ago, but when I taught from
Adrian and Pronzini's _Hard-Boiled_, "So Pale..." was second
only to Halliday's "Human Interest Stuff" as my students'
favorite story.
MDS
Michael D. Sharp Assistant Professor Binghamton University
(SUNY) Department of English Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
(607) 777-2418
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