Steve Wintress boarded the overnight flight to Los Angeles, knowing any one of the passengers could be an enemy agent - the young soldier in the ill-fitting uniform in the back row; the young blonde in the tweed suit and horn rimmed glasses; the big fellow with the well-cut dark hair across the aisle. Steve is vigilant, playing a lone hand on this assignment; the Davidian report is too important not to take bold steps to win.
When fog shuts down L.A., they land at Palmdale and the four congenial strangers share a car into town. Steve is late to meet his next contact, and finds him recently murdered. The operatives at the safe house have no information - Davidian has been seen in Hollywood, but no one can contact him.
The four continue to associate - the young soldier Reuben shares a hotel room with Steve, and the big fellow is Haig Armour, attorney with the FBI Justice Department, who invites the young woman Feather Talle out for dinner. Her Uncle is a film director who famously worked in Berlin - coincidentally, Reuben is a G.I. just out of Berlin. Our narrator Steve is actually Stefan Winterich, an American working to achieve the Davidian report for the Communist Party, or whomever is highest bidder. For on his tail are the Germans, the Americans, the Russians, and all operatives in-between - vying for the report which contains the war plans for the Soviet expansion in Western Europe.
All countries have a file on Davidian - and on Stefan Winterich.
Steve walks the lonely streets of Hollywood, a dark and desolate California Christmas - only once catching a glimpse of Davidian lost in the crowds of a Santa Claus parade. Steve meets up with his old lover from Berlin, Janni, once the star dancer in Eastern Zone black market cafes, now reduced to selling tickets at a 24-hour cinema. Only she knows where Davidian is, and no longer trusts Steve.
Steve is an unlikely character for the reader to hold as the 'hero', a Communist who will sell out to the highest bidder, and betray anyone to survive. This is a novel of trust and duplicity, the report merely the MacGuffin which moves the players around. Steve seeks personal gains rather than political ideals - a Communist agent working against the special agents of the Intelligence community and the Counter-Intelligence Corps.
Unless, this was all planned to remove Steve from the equation permanently.
Dorothy B. Hughes is a terrific writer of mysteries; this is the first spy novel I have read of hers, and she captures well unease and tension in ordinary situations. The writing has a deceptively simple and spare tone, masking the complex and well plotted machinations beneath. Recommended.
Her title In A Lonely Place was made into the classic 1947 Humphrey Bogart film, and Ride The Pink Horse was filmed in 1946 with Robert Montgomery.
The Davidian Report is widely available in eBook and audio.
My other Dorothy B. Hughes reviews:
1952 / Hardcover / 217 pages
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