The Expendable Man

The Expendable Man

Author: Dorothy B. Hughes

Publisher: New York Review of Books

Published: 2012-07-03

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1590175093

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“It was surprising what old experiences remembered could do to a presumably educated, civilized man.” And Hugh Denismore, a young doctor driving his mother’s Cadillac from Los Angeles to Phoenix, is eminently educated and civilized. He is privileged, would seem to have the world at his feet, even. Then why does the sight of a few redneck teenagers disconcert him? Why is he reluctant to pick up a disheveled girl hitchhiking along the desert highway? And why is he the first person the police suspect when she is found dead in Arizona a few days later? Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir. In books like In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse she exposed a seething discontent underneath the veneer of twentieth-century prosperity. With The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.


An Expendable Man

An Expendable Man

Author: Margaret Edds

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2006-10

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 0814722393

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How is it possible for an innocent man to come within nine days of execution? An Expendable Man answers that question through detailed analysis of the case of Earl Washington Jr., a mentally retarded, black farm hand who was convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of a 19-year-old mother of three in Culpeper, Virginia. He spent almost 18 years in Virginia prisons--9 1/2 of them on death row--for a murder he did not commit. This book reveals the relative ease with which individuals who live at society's margins can be wrongfully convicted, and the extraordinary difficulty of correcting such a wrong once it occurs. Margaret Edds makes the chilling argument that some other "expendable men" almost certainly have been less fortunate than Washington. This, she writes, is "the secret, shameful underbelly" of America's retention of capital punishment. Such wrongful executions may not happen often, but anyone who doubts that innocent people have been executed in the United States should remember the remarkable series of events necessary to save Earl Washington Jr. from such a fate.


The Blackbirder

The Blackbirder

Author: Dorothy B Hughes

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2015-03-05

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1473522307

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Espionage, adventure and a hard-boiled heroine not to be trifled with - this classic noir will have you gripped from start to finish Julie Guilles is in trouble. She's fled her home in Occupied France for a seedy neighbourhood in New York and has been laying low - but not low enough. Because now she has the Gestapo, the FBI and her shady Uncle, the Duc de Guille, all on her tail, and her options are running out. Whispers of the Blackbirder reach her - a sinister figure who, for the right price, can promise safe passage across the border to New Mexico. Finding the Blackbirder is her only chance of escape - but what if the Blackbirder doesn't want to be found? 'Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir' New York Review of Books


Expendable

Expendable

Author: James Alan Gardner

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 1497625246

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In a world where the marginalized of society are sent into space on suicide missions, one woman decides to fight back: “Riveting” (David Feintuch). In Expendable, the first volume of the League of Peoples, Festina Ramos is assigned to escort an unstable admiral to planet Melaquin. Little is known about Melaquin, for every explorer who’s landed there has disappeared. It’s come to be known as the “planet of no return,” and the High Council has made a habit of sending troublesome admirals there in an attempt to get rid of them. It’s clear that this is intended to be Ramos’s last mission, but she doesn’t plan on dying, no matter how expendable she may be.


The So Blue Marble

The So Blue Marble

Author: Dorothy B. Hughes

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 1480426954

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A “delightful . . . nonstop action” thriller from the author of In a Lonely Place—“readers new to this forgotten classic are in for a treat” (Publishers Weekly). At the age of twenty-four, Griselda Satterlee has already lived two lifetimes. A star of the silver screen, she gives up Hollywood after a year, and moves to New York to become a designer. While her ex-husband, Con, is out of town, she is staying in his apartment. Walking back one night, she meets two cheerful young men who want to go home with her—and won’t take no for an answer. David and Danny are twins, and they are the most beautiful men Griselda has ever seen. They are also the most dangerous. They want something from her: a lustrous blue marble, which they insist is in Con’s apartment. Though they leave without hurting her, Griselda knows that next time, they won’t be so amiable. To save herself, she must discover the secret of the marble—a secret with death at its core.


Ride the Pink Horse

Ride the Pink Horse

Author: Dorothy B. Hughes

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1480426962

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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. Sailor was Willis’s personal secretary when his wife died in an apparent robbery-gone-wrong. Only Sailor knows it was Willis who ordered her murder, and he’s agreed to keep his mouth shut in exchange for a little bit of cash. On Sailor’s tail is a cop who wants the senator for more than a payoff. As Fiesta rages on, these three men will circle one another in a dance of death, as they chase truth, money, and revenge.


Dread Journey

Dread Journey

Author: Dorothy B. Hughes

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2013-06-18

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1480426997

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A starlet on a transcontinental train fears her director may be trying to kill her in this novel by Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Dorothy B. Hughes. Four years after she arrived in Los Angeles, Kitten Agnew has become a star. Though beautiful and talented, she’d be nowhere without Vivien Spender: Hollywood’s most acclaimed director—and its most dangerous. But Kitten knew what she was getting into when she got involved with him; she had heard the stories of Viv’s past discoveries: Once he discarded them, they ended up in a chorus line, a sanatorium, or worse. She knows enough of his secrets that he wouldn’t dare destroy her career. But he may be willing to kill her. On a train from Los Angeles to Chicago, Kitten learns that Viv is planning to offer her roommate a part that was meant for her. If she lets him betray her, her career will be over. But fight for the part, and she will be fighting for her life as well.


Expendable Elite

Expendable Elite

Author: Daniel Marvin

Publisher: Trine Day

Published: 2006-08-01

Total Pages: 969

ISBN-13: 1937584070

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Exposing the unique nature of the United States’ elite fighting force, this narrative reveals how covert operations are often masked to permit and even sponsor assassination, outright purposeful killing of innocents, illegal use of force, and bizarre methods in combat operations. Through this compelling memoir, the author reveals the fear these warriors share not of the enemy they have been trained to fight in battle, but of the wrath of the U.S. government should they find themselves classified as “expendable.”


In a Lonely Place

In a Lonely Place

Author: Dorothy B. Hughes

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2010-05-06

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 0141192313

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Dix Steele is back in town, and 'town' is post-war LA. His best friend Brub is on the force of the LAPD, and as the two meet in country clubs and beach bars, they discuss the latest case: a strangler is preying on young women in the dark. Dix listens with interest as Brub describes their top suspect, as yet unnamed. Dix loves the dark and women in equal measure, so he knows enough to watch his step, though when he meets the luscious Laurel Gray, something begins to crack. The American Dream is showing its seamy underside.