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Title: Definitely Worth the Read
Review: Dorothy B. Hughes is certainly a powerful (and sadly over-looked) writer. In "In a Lonely Place" she depicts a vivid, hypnotic vision of post-WW2 LA, and she draws a scarily realistic and sometimes sympathetic portrait of "protagonist" Dix Steele. The novel is notable for its narrative twists & turns, its suspense (that most of the 'action' is not explicity show is both terrifying and brilliant, from a technical standpoint), and its tendency to turn both traditional noir structure and stock characters on their heads, so to speak. If you like noir or Cold War-era-informed fiction, give the unusual, the compelling, and the bone-chilling "In a Lonely Place" a chance.
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