""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 ... Read More
""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?"--Publisher marketing. Read Less
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Dorothy Hughes (1904 -- 1993) published "The Expendable Man", her fourteenth and last novel. in 1963, eleven years after her immediately prior novel, which ended a series of 13 novels written between 1940 and 1952. With this long break, "The Expendable Man" is one of Hughes' best works together with her novels "In a Lonely Place" (1947) and "Ride The Pink Horse" (1946). Hughes wrote crime, suspense fiction but her best works include sharp, incisive writing, a strong sense of place, character development, and social commentary. They transcend the genre.
"The Expendable Man" has all these traits and more. The novel is set in Phoeniz/Scottsdale Arizona, with scenes in the town of Indio, southern California, and in the desert. Here is how the novel opens, setting the stage and showing Hughes' ability to describe a scene.
"Across the traces, there was a different world. The long and lonely country was the color of sand. The horizon hills were haze-black; the clumps of mesquite stood in dark pools of their own shadowing. But the pools and the rim of dark horizon were discerned only by conscious seeing, else the world was all sand, brown and copper and tan and pale beige. Even the sky at this moment was sand, reflection of the fading bronze of the sun."
Here is Hughes' description of a (fictitious) hamburger restaurant near Scottsdale called Victor's.
"He backed away from the curb and drove the block and a half to the large bright ranch cafe at the intersection whose neon beacon spelled Victor's. It wasn't one of the fancy restaurants of the area, it was a hamburger place. Not a dump. It was new, built like a great ranch house of redwood and stone. Despite the late hour, there was a goodly crowd inside."
The novel's primary character, Hugh Densmore, is a young physician serving an internship at UCLA. He is en route from Los Angeles through Indio to Phoenix for a family wedding. He is driving his mother's white Cadillac. After running into a group of rowdy teens at a drive in restaurant in Indio, Densmore reluctantly stops to pick up a teen age girl hitching a ride to Phoenix. This act of kindness threatens Densmore's undoing. The girl is pregnant and asks Densmore to perform an abortion which he declines to do. The girl's body is soon found in a ditch, brutally murdered following an abortion. Densmore is the suspect, both for the abortion and for the murder.
The novel moves from scenes of comfort and upper-middle class life in Phoenix to scenes of squalor and abject poverty. Densmore and his new lady friend Helen retain an outstanding criminal lawyer to defend him against possible charges. At times in the story, the outlook for Densmore looks bleak indeed. He assists in his own cause and helps the lawyer seek out the perpetuators and at the same time develops his relationship with Helen in a not too subtle romantic competition with his attorney. Early in the story, when suspicion first falls on Densmore, the reader learns a fact, not earlier expressly stated about him which casts a new light on the story and on the crime.
The book explores issues which still are divisive in American life, including abortion. The search to uncover the killer involves a journey through the sleazy world of illegal abortion in Phoenix. The book shows the cruelty of the illegal abortion practice. But the book does not seem to suggest legalizing abortions to avoid the butchery; it views abortions as immoral and as an activity which is rightly criminalized and suppressed.
The other major social issue in the book is racism and anti-black prejudice. This issue is worked into the story in many ways and is crucial to the plot and to the book's ultimate resolution.
"The Expendable Man" is an outstanding book as a thriller, as a work depicting the deserts and places of Arizona and California, and as a book that thoughtfully addresses social issues. It rewards reading. The book is available in a single volume published by New York Review Books with an Afterword by Walter Mosely and in an anthology, "Crime Novels: Five Classic Thrillers 1961-- 1964" published by the Library of America.
