Dolores Hitchens wrote Sleep With Slander which Bill
Pronzini, Marcia Muller and I consider one of the great
overlooked private eye novels. Maxim Jakubowski reprinted it
in his excellent Bue Murder line.
She began as a traditional and sometimes cozy writer in, I
believe, the Forties but by the Fifties her fiction had
become decidedly darker with novels such as Stairway to An
Empty Rooom. I'm pretty sure she was influenced by the great
Elizabeth Sanxay Holding because in her best work there's the
same almost hallucinogenic quality. She also wrote at least
one exceptional western.
In the late Fifties and early Sixties she wrote a series with
her husband
(though most think she did the writing and he supplied the
information about being a railroad investigator) about a
railroad cop. She also did a number of stand-alones which. I
suspect Godard chose one of those to adapt.
, Like most writers who do a good number of books, she had
misses as well as hits. But when she was on she was a fine
storyteller. She also produced several memorable short
stories.
She ended her career with Putnam so she was certainly at the
top of her publishing game when she passed on.
Ed
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