Nightfall / The Moon in the Gutter / Down There / Dark Passage

by David Goodis

“An almost perfect book, spare, balanced, and inexplicably moving.”?Geoffrey O’Brien

Jim Vanning has an identity crisis. Is he an innocent artist who just happens to have some very dangerous people interested in him? Or is he a killer on the lam from his last murder?with a satchel worth over $300,000 in tow?

Relentlessly focused, Nightfall may be David Goodis’ most accomplished novel. It is a fiendishly constructed maze, filled with unpredictable pitfalls and human predators whose authenticity only makes them more terrifying.

David Goodis (1917–1967), a former pulp, radio, and Hollywood script writer, is now recognized as a leading author of crime fiction. Besides sojourns in New York City and Hollywood, he lived primarily in Philadelphia.

Genres: Crime, Mystery

540 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1983

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

[Tom Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great stories but often sappy dialogue.