In a Lonely Place (New York Review Books)

This is a very good book, and very different from the classic movie based on it. Its themes run hard through noir as a genre, through masculinity and femininity, and through the power to define life’s challenges.It is true noir, not a mystery. We know Dix Steele, the unsympathetic main character, to be a murderer, a serial murderer, from the beginning. The question is why, and what’s next?Dix is a returning WWII vet, a former fighter pilot. He comes to Los Angeles to sublet an apartment from an old college acquaintance, Mel Terriss.Taking over Terriss’ apartment, clothes, and car gives Dix a patina of status. He looks like any guy who's making it. But he’s not. He’s living off an allowance from his uncle while he ostensibly tries his hand at becoming a professional writer.None of this stuff is really working,What he actually does is play the role of a guy who's making it, biding time while he fails to write and while what money he has runs out.In the meantime he watches and thinks about women. Women fall into the same constellation of the guy not making it, resenting not making it, not being a somebody like he was when he was a fighter pilot during the war, and keeping up appearances. Women are out of reach, the women that the guys who are really making it make it with.On a reliable monthly cycle, the swirl of resentment, frustration, and misogyny boils over, and someone dies. A woman, strangled.Dix the former fighter pilot also enjoys the chase. He’s addicted to a downward spiral of suspicion and anger in the chase of a woman. And he’s drawn into a chase with his wartime buddy, Brub Nicolai, now a detective for the Los Angeles PD.The heart of the novel then flows and crashes through his game of cat and mouse with Brub (and Brub’s clever and perceptive wife, Sylvia) and his chase of his dreamgirl, Laurel Gray. Laurel may have her own faults, but she doesn’t deserve Dix. Her faults only serve to light Dix’s fuse.It’s got that great noir feel of nothing-good-can-come-of-this. And it doesn’t, not to give anything away, since it’s pretty clear from the beginning. Dix is flawed and self-destructive to the core, and it goes back through all the murders to the original in the series of women he didn’t make it with, Brucie in Scotland, before he returned to America from the war.When you read the novel, it’s as much a ride you’re getting on as a story you’re following. And since it’s written from Dix’s perspective, you get to go down the same black hole he’s going down.The movie version, like I mentioned, is really a different story. It was cut off at the knees by Joseph Breen and the Motion Picture Code. The serial murderer was out, and the probably innocent suspect was in.The misogyny survived, which we might want to reflect on a bit. “Woman” here is an opponent, an object of psychological struggle. You see it especially in Dix’s relationship with Brub’s wife Sylvia, as well of course as Laurel. He wrestles constantly, in his own mind, with what he thinks to be Sylvia’s suspicions. It begins the moment he meets her.Dix’s ill-fated relationship with Laurel is romantic by contrast, but romance here is also a psychological struggle, mainly Dix vs. Dix. Because it’s inside Dix, it’s a struggle between Dix and every woman, automatically. An opponent before she even enters the scene, as happened with Sylvia.In Dix’s mind, the relationship between men and women is a predator/predator relationship, and it becomes self-confirming as a threatened woman fights back.This is great noir stuff.Just to add, Megan Abbott’s Afterword is short but so straightforwardly incisive that it’s hard to review the book without borrowing from her. It’s well placed as an “afterword” — so don’t read it until you’ve read the book.

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.

Personally I had no idea who Dorothy Hughes was before reading this eBook. I've checked her out now on the internet. I read loads of different books but she slipped past me somehow. Anyway, I'm pleased to say this title ' In a lonely place' was a steal at £0.99 on a kindle deal. Why was that? Well, because from start the finish the novel engaged me, and I was trying to figure out the ending, unsuccessfully as it happened, all the way through.It's not the best book I've ever read but it most certainly isn't the worst. I rate it 5 stars because it was just a good read with a dark story. The prose is fluent. Not too many big fancy words that no one understands and well paced paragraphs and chapters.The book is just over 200 pages long and took me about 4/5 hours to read. If you are hoping to get a summer holiday after the pandemic this book is just that holiday kind of read we all look for. Not too heavy on the brain cells and interesting enough to enjoy to the end. I recommend it.

very entertaining

I can see why Dorothy B Hughes was so popular .She grabbed my attention and never let go . I will read more of her books , and soon .

Our narrator, Dix Steele, has moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles, where he plans to write a mystery novel. Or at least that’s what he told his uncle, who has grudgingly agreed to pay him a small allowance for a year while he tries his hand at writing. He tells the same tale to Brub Nicolai, a wartime buddy with whom he renews his friendship, and Brub’s new wife, Sylvia. But Dix has a dark secret – he likes to strangle young women. And Brub has a new career, as a police detective…Told in the first person, this is a psychological study of what we would now call a serial killer. This has been done many times in the years since 1947 when this was first published, of course, so a trip to the inside of the head of a psychopath isn’t as startling as it may have been at the time. The gruesomeness of the murders is mostly kept off the page, and Hughes also keeps it clean – there are hints at a sexual element to the crimes, but we are not made privy to the details. All of this means that, although it probably counts as noir in terms of subject matter and outcome, it feels considerably lighter than the little classic noir I’ve previously read. Not that I’m objecting to that – a lot of noir is far too grim and bleak for my taste, and I’m always happier when graphic sex and violence is left to the imagination.What I objected to rather more was the incredibly slow pace of the first half of the novel. We very quickly learn that Dix is a killer, and that L.A. is gripped by this series of murders. We see the fear of the women, and of their men on their behalf. And through Brub we see the bafflement of the police, getting nowhere in their investigation and unable to predict where and when the next murder will happen. All of this is excellent, but then it dips into a sort of longueur where these things are gone over repeatedly and nothing much changes. I found it required an effort of will to keep going.However, it picks up considerably in the second half, and happily I at last found myself gripped. Dix falls for a beautiful dame, Laurel, a sultry, sexy feline in female form. Is she a femme fatale? Or is she destined to be another victim? Is she a temptress, a loose woman, or a forerunner of the sexually liberated women about to hit the scene? Dix thinks he sees her for what she is and believes they are destined for one another, but is that how Laurel sees it? Is Sylvia in danger? We like Sylvia – she’s all that is good about America, according to the values of the time; the feminine woman, attractive but not too corruptingly sexy, the respectable home-maker, the loving support to her husband, the little woman who needs protection. Though there might be more to her than that – we see her only through Dix’s unreliable eyes, and he gradually comes to fear that she may have seen through his outer shell.Hughes does an excellent job of using the uncertainty in Dix’s mind to keep the reader in suspense too. Does Brub suspect Dix of being the killer, or is that just Dix’s increasing paranoia at work? As Dix’s fear of being caught grows, everything that happens begins to take on a sinister feel. Is the gardener outside really a gardener or is he a police spy? Is that car following Dix or is it just someone heading in the same direction? Dix thinks he’s clever enough to fool Brub and anyone else who might suspect him, but still his actions grow more erratic. The paranoia is the element that makes the second half work so well.I’m unconvinced about the psychology hinted at as to why Dix became a serial killer, although that may be because we are more used these days to the idea of serial killings as being senseless, motiveless crimes. However, I felt it worked well in the context of the book (sorry, I know I’m being vague here – it’s deliberate to avoid spoilers).Overall, the suspense of the second half made up for the slowness of the first half and I’m glad I didn’t give up on it. Now to watch the film version starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame – I get the impression it might be rather different from the book which is always fun…(P.S. Watched the film - it's great! Much better than the book.)

I am quite impressed with this book. You know years ago I wouldn't read anything this old because I thought they would be boring. I am glad to say the more I read of these early novels the more I enjoy them.