PENGUIN In a Lonely Place

A fantastic noir crime novel of the highest standard. If you're a fan of Chandler then you will love this novel, with its sparse prose, cast of damaged characters, and LA post war setting. The identity of the murderer is not definitely revealed until well into the book, and I am appalled at how many reviewers are giving this away. Don't they realise that many people read the reviews before buying the book ? Please, please if you are going to review this book don't ruin for other readers by giving the murderer's identity away. We might think we have guessed, but its not until nearly the end of the book before we find out if we are right or, as often happens in crime thrillers, there is a twist we (maybe) never saw coming. And if you are one of those reviewers who give it away, please consider rewording your review to take this plot spoiler (nay, plot ruiner) out.

A little slow to start, I thought I was heading for a pretty dull read. But oh boy, does the tension mount! It’s not just the plot though, it’s the insights into the main character and the quality of the writing that makes this such a good read. My first by the author but have just ordered two more. Recommended.

Dorothy Hughes offers a different perspective in her noir novel In a Lonely Place. Using an outside point of view, she still manages to take you inside the head of Dix Steele, a strangler who preys on unsuspecting women and becomes the focus of a manhunt. We follow his path and see that he does and thinks, so his unstableness becomes evident from the get go. In this way, Hughes creates not only an impressive crime novel, but the character study of a killer's downward spiral. Gone are the jabs and cynicism of some noir, but the author replaces these with effective attention to detail. She creates the atmosphere of alienation and isolation that her main character experiences, and then transforms the mood to one of mayhem and tension. A skillful writer will not belabor the point and give you every answer to a character's profile, and Hughes allows us to make our own judgments about the hows and whys of Steele's mental state, giving us glimpses and clues without revealing too much. It's equally fascinating--and unnerving--how we get to stew around in Steele's brain at points, which fluctuates between despair, sadness, isolation, anger, madness and insecurity. His cocky demeanor and "thrill-seeking" attitude are truly psychopathic in nature, and Hughes' ability to dig this deep into a character's psyche is truly remarkable (and, effectively disturbing). While the plot follows a semi -traditional "killer on the loose" crime scenario, clearly the author does a masterful job of keeping several key characters "in the dark" as to the nature and details of the crimes, and this makes for a rewarding mystery as to the outcome (even though, as readers, the criminal's intent is right in front of us). As events unravel, Hughes has a compelling way of almost taking an unreliable narrative approach to the point of view, particularly toward the end. If there is a negative, it is the dialogue between characters, which is a bit flat and forced. I found this evident especially in the scenes with Dix and Laurel. Over all, though, In a Lonely Place was an impressive noir, a character study of the criminal mind and a suspenseful read that builds to a final, skillful conclusion. There's also a brilliant and insightful afterward by Lisa Maria Hogeland that analyzes the novel and its characters in depth.

This novel revolves the antics of Dix Steele a serial killer who out of hubris rekindles a friendship with one of the Detectives who is investigating his murders. Whilst the novel was made into a movie of the same name, the movie bares very little resemblance to the novel. Dorothy B. Hughes is one of the hardboiled authors of the classic period. Whilst this novel may not have the wit of Chandler or the plotting of Hammett, it does however fall into the category of a psychological thriller, the pace maybe somewhat slow for some readers, and the character of a serial killer may not be as believable as say in Jim Thompson's Killer inside me. However, it is intelligently written in an intuitive and introspective sense even though the climax is flagged well in advance.

Dorothy Hughes was one hell of a writer. You may think you know this book from the movie with the same name with Humphrey Bogart, but that movie changed the story so substantially as to create a much different story line. In a Lonely Place is the tale of a psychotic WWII veteran turned killer who preys on lonely women at night. It's told from his perspective, albeit in third person. The scene is Los Angeles. The time is just after the war. The murders are senseless and seemingly random. The fault is all Dix's, the protagonist. The victims were in the classic wrong place, wrong time. Hughes does a very good job of feeding us a drip line of insights which begin to fill in the back story, and the first murder Dix committed in England. Yet, we really don't know that much factual information about him, nor do we ever. Most of our insight comes from interior dialogue in Dix's twisted mind. Hughes dribbles out key insights with the deft hands of a master writer. I was reminded of two authors continuously while reading this. The first is the late great Patricia Highsmith, another very gifted author from the mid century. The other is Dostoyevsky, especially his Crime and Punishment. Both are famous psychological authors and the slow, gradual closing in on Dix is very reminiscent of their best works. There's a marvelous afterword by a University of Cincinnati professor which does a great job of laying Hughes technique bare. As she points out, the irony of having a post-modern feminist deconstruction of masculine identity being told from the point of view of a male serial murderer is rich indeed. What Hughes achieves in this book is not just a superb thriller, not just a great piece of literature, but a searching of sexual identity in the modern world. This book will stay with you long after you have put it down. Highly recommended!