To Have and Have Not

It's Short Book September! I scrolled my massive to-be-read pile for books of under 250 pages and found exactly what I needed. 

Dorothy B Hughes' In a Lonely Place (1947) is a perfect noir crime thriller. Dixon (Dix) Steele has returned to the States from WWII where he served in the Air Force. Originally hailing from the East coast, a Princeton grad, Dix has come out to Los Angeles. He is living in a flat belonging to Mel Terriss, who has allegedly taken an extended trip to Rio, and so Dix has access to Mel's car, wardrobe and accounts. A great deal for a guy with champagne tastes and little money. We quickly learn that Dix is a grifter - telling tall tales and scamming his uncle for funds. 

From the outset we know Dix is a dangerous man. The opening chapter describes how he follows a woman at night from the bus stop to her home. He is decidedly creepy, with an undercurrent of misogyny and self-loathing.

We then learn that LA is gripped by tales of a strangler - a lone man who stalks young women - leaving a body each month for the homicide squad to investigate. Dix's old war buddy Brub Nicolai is now a cop on the trail of the killer, so Dix keeps him close to stay up to date on the case.

Dix meets a dame, Laurel, who lives in Terriss' building. Dix falls for her hard and is thrown because she is an independent woman, not some damsel in distress. Can Dix put his past behind him and be happy with her? Or is he forever caught in a lonely place, having to live with his actions?

In the second half the novel's pace quickens when paranoia sets it as the net tightens around Dix. He wonders if he is being followed, he questions whether he has made a mistake and left a clue behind, he is suspicious of everyone around him. He becomes more erratic in his decisions and desperate in his actions. 

Dorothy B Hughes may not be as well known as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett or Patricia Highsmith but she should be. She has crafted an incredible character study - getting deep into the mind of a killer - but does so in a way where the violence of his crimes is alluded to but not shown. We don't have to read about the grizzly details, but we can well imagine them. I also love the language she uses in this novel and some choice words and phrases like 'megrims' which I plan to incorporate in my lexicon. I am keen to seek out some of her other novels.

Of course my impression of Dix was that he looked and sounded like Humphrey Bogart, who plays him in the film. I had not seen the film prior to reading, but a still from the film graces the cover of my Penguin Modern Classics edition so I had him in my mind and could not form an independent view. 

Today, a few days after finishing the book, I watched the film version of In a Lonely Place (1950) directed by Nicolas Ray. The movie is so different from the book. In the film, Dix is a well-known screenwriter with a fiery temper, quick to throw a punch. He is questioned regarding the murder of a hatcheck girl, and his inner darkness causes those around him to be suspicious. Bogart is fantastic and Gloria Grahame is brilliant as Laurel, but the other characters are not fully explored. The film is pretty good on its own, but it is a pale imitation of the book.