Of Missing Persons

by David Goodis

Il capitano Paul Ballard dell’ufficio Persone Scomparse si trova alle prese col caso « Nichols ». La signora Myra Nichols, dopo avere identificato il cadavere del marito trovato da Ballard, dichiara che il marito è ancora vivo. E come se non bastasse Myra finisce uccisa misteriosamente.
Tutto il Reparto del capitano Ballard viene posto sotto inchiesta.
Ballard darà allora inizio a una angosciosa caccia all’uomo, anche a rischio di perdere il posto.

152 pages

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Born and bred in Philadelphia, David Goodis was an American noir fiction writer. He grew up in a liberal, Jewish household in which his early literary ambitions were encouraged. After a short and inconclusive spell at Indiana University, he returned to Philadelphia to take a degree in journalism, graduating in 1937.

Reviews

[Antonius Block]

Perhaps Goodis’ most conventional novel, Of Missing Persons is a police procedural that boasts an authentic portrayal of a Missing Persons bureau. Much like the movie House on 92nd Street, where the FBI’s cooperation in the making of the film leads to the stentorian narrator’s glorification of that great institution, the cooperation of the LAPD in the writing of this book has resulted in a story that somewhat excessively sings the praises of the hard-working and underappreciated people who comprise the Missing Persons bureau.

The Goodis hero is always a man who has lost the stature and sense of purpose that once defined his existence, and these narratives follow that character’s trajectory back into the fold of life, sometimes finding such a resurgence possible, other times going full circle and ending up back in the despondent state of living death that he started out at. The second alternative becomes more typical of Goodis’ later (and frankly better) books, whereas his earlier books are more deliberately hopeful.

In Of Missing Persons, Goodis blends this familiar character arc into an apparently biographical sketch of the Christ-like figure that heads the Missing Persons bureau as he is publicly slandered by a rotten tabloid newspaper, criticized en masse by angry members of the public, and blackmailed by the higher-ups in his own department, all the while dedicating himself with an unhealthy devotion to his role as a public servant. The book features brief moments of second person, but not as much as in his later works, and by and large the writing doesn’t really stand out. The Third Man-like plot seems uninspired here, and it all leads to a surprisingly sentimental, pat happy ending that smacks of a Thank You note to the real Missing Persons bureau. All in all, my least favorite Goodis novel.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of Missing Persons (1950) This David Goodis novel is substantially different than most of his I read in that it’s a straight police procedural. It reminds me more of William P. McGivern, (The Big Heat 1953, Rogue Cop 1954), another Philadelphia based writer than any of Goodis’s more typical skid row sagas. Paul Ballard, head of Los Angeles’ Missing Persons Bureau struggles to keep his sanity and his marriage together as a woman who, after reporting her husband missing and then trying to jump off the ledge of Paul’s fourth floor office (the girl is clearly high maintenance), insists her husband is alive and then she is murdered. The Police Chief and the Press are on Ballard, as is his wife who wants him to take a higher paying Insurance Investigator’s job that’s been offered. Not a lot of surprises but suspenseful and very well done, and while Paul may have a nightmare or two, there’s never any doubt that they are in fact nightmares, which is different than most Goodis novels.

[Victoria Mixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, a) the woman on the ledge threatening to jump looked nothing like the button-popping jailbait they put on the cover, but b) that's not the hardest part to take.

I loved Goodis' Dark Passage---I have a poster of that darn movie up on my wall---so I was thrilled to find another of his dark mysteries. And it's not like this isn't well-written, because it is. However, when the hardnosed protagonist cop bullies an innocent young woman into a hysterical fetal position questioning her brutally to make her say she's just been violently raped, even while another cop stands by objecting to these vicious tactics on an innocent witness. . .that young woman is never, ever, EVER going to come back at the end of the story and thank the guy because, hot dog, he's just that great with the psychology of handling witnesses.

Jesus H. Christ, Goodis. Talk to a shrink.

[duuskbee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟