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In this thrilling mystery from "the Hitchcock of the written word," two lovers rush to solve a murder before the end of a New York night (Believer) When Quinn first meets Bricky, she's working as a partner-for-hire at a dancehall and he's struggling to shake the anxiety of his guilty conscience. Earlier that day, the young man took advantage of a found key and used it to rob a stranger's home. Now, with the purloined money in his pocket, Quinn is unable to escape the memory of his wrongdoing--and not even a night spent dancing is enough to silence his nagging thoughts. When the dancehall closes, he and Bricky--linked, after many intimate hours, by a budding romance--return to the scene of the crime intending to restore the stolen fortune and begin a new life together, only to discover, upon arrival, that the owner of the property has been murdered. There's evidence present that easily links Quinn to the crime, and he expects that, as soon as day breaks and the authorities learn of the gruesome scene, he will be arrested straight away. Which means that he and Bricky have only a few short hours to find the true killer and clear Quinn's name for good. What begins as a romance soon turns into a nightmare, as this young couple trek through the dark underbelly of old New York in a desperate race for salvation. Twisty, turny, and breathlessly told, Deadline at Dawn is an exemplary tale from the "supreme master of suspense" (New York Times).… (more)
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I finally found
I am absolutely blown away by the writing skill exhibited in the book. Never before have a read a first paragraph, read it again, and then reread it one more time just because the prose was so phenomenal.
And throughout the book, I would be reading along and suddenly be stopped dead by the beauty of the turn of a phrase. And the detail and description within the book is the definition of noir.
The plot is good enough. A couple meets and, because of events within the young man's life, feels that, if they do not turn things around by morning, they will never get another chance. What brings them together is a bit of a reach. And I'm not convinced people would act exactly as they do here, they would not have the sense of fatalism that pervades the situation. (Then again, that might also be the scourge of time.)
But that prose, those beautiful words. I could give you examples, but I won't. You go out there. You read it. You find them. And you be smacked back in your chair the same way I was.