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#TLT #ThreeListThursday

Thanks for the tag @dabbe 😊

Crime fiction and mystery is probably my favorite genre, so it was great fun to peruse this list. Listed are the top three from the list that I HAVEN‘T read yet, but really want to.

Feel like trying it out for yourself? Consider yourself tagged. This is the link: https://www.listchallenges.com/litsy-time-magazines-100-best-mystery-and/list/3

Having read and loved Expendable Man , I decided to go for this one by Dorothy Hughs. A different story in many ways , but that brilliant suspense and surprise was there again. Great characters . I couldn‘t put it down. More D Hugh‘s for me 👍🏻♥️

#unpopularopinion here, but I was mostly bored with this. I appreciate that Hughes puts the reader in the mind of a serial killer, how she made the LA fog feel like a character, and this definitely had strong noir vibes. And the writing itself is fine. It just seemed like the whole book was the MC was driving around, eating, drinking, and obsessing over his bombshell neighbor. The killings were in the periphery-just not a lot of action.

“The criminal doesn‘t escape‘”.… “He has to live with himself. He‘s caught there in that lonely place.”

Very good read. I was hooked from the beginning. Compelling narrative, brilliant characterisations, and great descriptions of the settings - I could almost picture the beaches and the diners..not forgetting the fog! Being in the head of Dix Steele can be exhausting, unnerving,..but a fabulous character study.

I loved her The Expendable Man and am really looking forward to reading this one. Thank you so much @BarbaraBB! 🤗

Day 5 of #12booksof2020

I loved Dorothy B Hughes‘ The Expendable Man and was a bit scared this one couldn‘t live up to my expectations but man did it deliver. Noir at its best, subtle and intelligent.
A real favorite this year! 🖤

I finally went into Manhattan (for a much needed haircut) and since I was within walking distance of the Strand....

I loved this classic noir told from the POV of the killer. My first Dorothy B Hughes mystery and definitely not my last. (I also remember watching and enjoying the film version of this story on TCM)

#BookReport 23/20

The tagged one was a real favorite, the standing one I bailed on, the others were okay. No complaints!

You were right @vivastory I loved this book. Coincidentally it was another noir crime set in LA after the war (like The Black Dahlia, that I just read) but this one is so much better. The suspense is so subtle and intelligent. The POV is the serial killer‘s and that is so cool. As are the setting, the dialogues and the ending. It‘s at least as good as Dorothy Hughes‘s The Expendable Man. Highly recommended! #NYRB

loved it! need to see the movie now with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame
#BestMysteriesOfAllTime #Feb2020

In a Lonely Place is an excellent example of hard-boiled, LA Noir. Hughes is an expert at building tension. Although the violence almost exclusively takes place in the periphery, it is ever present the interactions Dix Steele has with his friends and lover. I particularly enjoyed how Hughes subverts some of the tropes of this genre, like the femme fatale, and avoids melodramatic, theatrical storytelling by placing us in the mind of the killer.

Boxing Day is for catching up on long missed book club reads #indiebuddyreads

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was a little surprised by how much I liked this. Noir is all a little melodramatic for me usually and this 1947 rediscovered classic does have its moments of swelling waves and “the thunderous ecstasy of the hungry sea” not to mention fog ! . However it is very good. There is plenty of tension filled moments here and it‘s a solid portrait of toxic masculinity and maybe one could go as far as saying predictive of the rise of “Incels”

Arrived today. Pure #NYRB bounty.

Got started on this last night. It's unputdownable, and unlike some mysteries of the era maybe even more relevant in our #MeToo moment. My second Dorothy B. Hughes - I'll be hunting down the rest of her novels.

Perfect noir, set in 1947 Los Angeles. The main character, Dix, starts out the story stalking a girl alone at night and then renews a friendship with an old army buddy who‘s a cop, all while a strangler is on the loose in the city. Can‘t recommend enough.

My stack to pull from for the #24in48Readathon, my favorite readathon of the year 😄

They were one unto the other, a circle whirling evenly, effortlessly, endlessly. He knew beauty and the intensity of a dream and he was meshed in a womb he called happiness. He did not think: This must come to an end in time. A circle had no beginning or end; it existed.

Hughes has been compared to Raymond Chandler, James Cain, and Jim Thompson. In this book, her POV character, Dix Steele, a serial killer, is worthy predecessor to Patricia Highsmith‘s Tom Ridley, although not quite so personable. Despite its gruesome subject, most of the violence takes place on between the chapters and left to the imagination. Highly Recommended. I also recommend another book by her, The Expendable Man.

I've been a huge NYRB fan for years, but this might be my first purchase. I loved The Expendable Man, so my hopes are high for this as well!

It‘s post war Los Angeles,most folks are putting their lives back in order ,enjoying the simple things ,dinner at the club, a day at the beach.For Dix,after the war, the prestige and excitement is gone.But he‘s the smartest guy in the room ,just ask him.When things aren‘t going his way , paranoia and anger take over.A wonderfully written noir with strong female characters. The scent of the sea and eucalyptus hang in the air,as you head to.....

This was amazing! It drew me in from the very beginning-the entire book is just so unsettling, and while you know from the very beginning that something's not right with the main character, it gradually becomes more and more clear just how twisted he is.

When you realize the dog, her bed, and the rug are a close match for the colors on the book cover, obviously you should post it on litsy! #dogsoflitsy

#ScaryMonsters and #SuperCreeps

Three books that put the reader inside the mind of a serial killer.

Dorothy B. Hughes was way ahead of her time in 1947 writing In a Lonely Place from the perspective of a sociopath. 70 years later, the twisted psychology of Dix Steele still comes across as so believable.

It's been done many times since, memorably with Frederick Clegg in The Collector & Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. So chilling.

Visited The Mysterious Bookshop in NYC last week. Bought In A Lonely Place signed by Megan Abbott and Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene. #mystery #bookstore

Picked this up after hearing about it on NPR last week - boy they did not steer me wrong! I've never read Dorothy B Hughes before and I am LOVING this.

This will be my 1947 pick for my #192019challenge.

Here's the NPR link if you're interested: http://www.npr.org/2017/08/22/545261350/if-you-want-groundbreaking-noir-try-look...

For the black and white challenge- some penguin classics and Edna O'Brien's jaw dropping memoir.

movie edition #BookMail from #BookOutlet 🎥🎬🍿👌

Loved this unconventional noir crime thriller with a feminist twist. #sideprofiles #jubilantjuly

What a creepy crime novel!

I thought this would be a quick read, but it's so dark I can't read much of it at one time. Wow.

Dix Steele is MUCH creepier and more psychotic in the book than he is in the movie. More than anything, he reminds me of the killer in Devil in the White City. *shudder*