I finished In A Lonely Place the other night. I thought it
was quite good, definitely noir and possibly hardboiled. In
many ways, Dix Steele reminded me of a much harder Tom
Ripley. Like Ripley, Dix is a guy with no money who has a
history of mooching off of his "betters." However, where
Ripley kills to further his desires, Steele desires to kill.
For the record, that is not a spoiler, you know from very
near the beginning that Dix is the killer. The book opens
with him stalking a potential victim. The story builds on his
feeling of superiority to and playing cat and mouse with the
Police, including an Air Force-vet buddy. Meanwhile, he meets
a girl he thinks may end, or at least lessen, his need to
kill.
The story is extremely well paced. The killings are offstage;
Hughes follows Poe and allows your imagination to fill in the
blanks about what exactly is done to the female victims.
There is a nice sense of growing creepiness and impending
doom. She also does a good job of making Dix interesting,
even as you come to think less and less of him. This is no
romanticized serial killer. Although told in third person,
Dix is the point of view character. Hughes does not get
terribly detailed about his psychology, but she nicely
handles the escalation in his behavior, showing how his
increased feeling of superiority helps lead to his
downfall.
Good book. And I think I'll have to see the movie
again.
One thing just struck me, though, about this generation of
female hardboiled writers, they had male protagonists --
Hughes, Leigh Brackett; does the same apply to
Hitchens?
Mark
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