I whizzed through Bill Ballinger's THE LONGEST SECOND (1957)
today. It opens with a twist on the old "man wakes up with
amnesia and the bad guys are after him" set-up, and it's not
the "man wakes up with amnesia, in a bed beside a dead
blonde, and the bad guys are after him" variant. It's
"man wakes up with amnesia and a slit throat, then wakes up
again in the hospital, and the bad guys are after him."
It's told fairly briskly, with some quotes from Nietzsche and
practical advice on silversmithing, but any book like this
needs to rely on coincidence and luck for the hero to figure
out who he is and why he's being chased. It'd be interesting
to read a bleak noir crime novel about a guy who wakes up
with amnesia, perhaps beside a dead blonde, but never figures
out who he is or why he's being chased. He never gets back
his old life.
Bill
-- William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat lector.
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