Dorothy Belle Hughes

Postwar Los Angeles is a lonely place where the American Dream is showing its seamy underside—and a stranger is preying on young women. The suggestively named Dix Steele, a cynical vet with a chip on his shoulder about the opposite sex, is the LAPD's top suspect. Dix knows enough to watch his step, especially since his best friend is on the force, but when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray—a femme fatale with brains—something begins to crack. The basis for extraordinary performances by Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame in the 1950 film version of the book, In a Lonely Place tightens the suspense with taut, hard-boiled prose and stunningly undoes the conventional noir plot.

In a Lonely Place

Just as Hughes's earlier books had engaged with the political issues of the 1940s - the legacy of the Depression, and the struggles against fascism and rascism - so 'The Expendable Man', published in 1963 during Kennedy's presidency and set in Arizona, evokes the emerging social, racial and moral tensions of the time.

The Expendable Man

From the "queen of noir," a gripping 1943 WWII espionage novel with a unique hardboiled heroine.

The Blackbirder

To stop a Communist plot, a secretive man searches Los Angeles for a confidential report. When bad weather forces his flight to Los Angeles to land outside of town, Steve Wintress agrees to share a car with three of his fellow travelers: a timid young soldier, a powerful Justice Department official, and a taciturn Hollywood beauty. They don't know it yet, but all four strangers have something in common -- and one of them might kill to get it. A Communist defector has smuggled the priceless Davidian report out of East Berlin, and every secret agency in the world wants to get its hands on it. The report is somewhere in Los Angeles, and Steve will have to battle the CIA, FBI, and the Communist Party to secure it for himself. As he knows all too well, in a game like this, the last thing you should trust is a friendly face.

Dorothy Belle Hughes

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