Dorothy B Hughes

To prevent another war, a diplomat hides from enemies of peace Twelve years after the Second World War ended, America's war efforts have been replaced by those of the Peace Department, whose chief responsibility is to oversee the police force that governs Germany. On the eve of the biennial Peace Conclave in New York, rumors are swirling that the force may be withdrawn, and the Germans allowed free reign once again. Only the secretary of peace stands...

During the annual Fiesta, three desperate men converge in a perilous New Mexico town in this "extraordinary" crime novel (The New Yorker). It takes four days for Sailor to travel to New Mexico by bus. He arrives broke, sweaty, and ready to get what's his. It's the annual Fiesta, and the locals burn an effigy of Zozobra so that their troubles follow the mythical character into the fire. But for former senator Willis Douglass, trouble is just beginning....

On their second honeymoon, a woman's husband is arrested for murder Griselda Satterlee is beginning to regret her second marriage to Con. Their honeymoon was supposed to be joyous, romantic, and full of glamor—all of the things their first marriage wasn't—but instead they are spending it on Long Beach, a Navy town whose fleets have all shipped out to sea. The tedium of Long Beach cannot compare to the insult Con gives Griselda one night, when...

Lost in New York, a GI stumbles upon a nest of peculiar Germans Private First Class Johnnie Brown has only two days to spend in New York before he ships out to fight the Nazis. While his fellow soldiers amuse themselves at the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the night clubs of Times Square, Johnnie has a humbler wish: to ride the subway. But no sooner has he paid his nickel than he detects something peculiar: a stout, mysterious...

An escapee from a Spanish prison hunts for his best friend's killer in New York For more than a year, Kit McKittrick languishes in a Fascist prison, his days spent in darkness and his nights tortured by fear of his limping jailer, whose name he never learns. He escapes Spain with the help of Louie Lepetino, a childhood friend who came with him to fight on behalf of the Republican cause. Back in the United States, Kit heads out West to recover from...

A classic World War II-era noir with a page-turning plot, a cast of colorfully sinister characters and a protagonist who is thrust into the heart of political intrigue, this captivating 1943 novel parallels the spy novels of Grahame Greene, Eric Ambler, and the films of Hitchcock and Lang. But in -signature Hughes fashion, The Blackbirder has a genre-bending twist: its hardboiled protagonist is a woman.

Born of American expatriate

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A movie star fears for her life on a train journey from Los Angeles to Chicago.

A striking crime drama based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. A tough-talking former GI who comes to a small New Mexico town to shake down a gangster who killed his best friend; things quickly turn nasty.

A down on his luck screenwriter reluctantly agrees to adapt a trashy bestseller to the silver screen. Rather than read the book himself, Steele convinces a star-struck hatcheck girl, Mildred Atkinson, to accompany him home and tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is found murdered and Steele, who has a history of violent behavior, becomes the prime suspect. A neighbor who is attracted to him lies to the police providing him...