Ride the Pink Horse

by Dorothy B. Hughes, Sara Paretsky (Introduction)

Overview

A New York Times Best Mystery of 2021

Three desperate men converge in the midst of an annual carnival in New Mexico

Sailor used to be Senator Willis Douglass’ protege. When he met the lawmaker, he was just a poor kid, living on the Chicago streets. Douglass took him in, put him through school, and groomed him to work as a confidential secretary. And as the senator’s dealings became increasingly corrupt, he knew he could count on Sailor to clean up his messes.

Willis Douglass isn’t a senator anymore; he left Chicago, Sailor, and a murder rap behind and set out for the sunny streets of Santa Fe. Now, unwilling to take the fall for another man’s crime, Sailor has set out for New Mexico as well, with blackmail and revenge on his mind. But there’s another man on his trail as well—a cop who wants the ex-senator for more than a payoff. In the midst of a city gone mad, bursting with wild crowds for a yearly carnival, the three men will violently converge…

The suspenseful tale that inspired one of the most beloved films noir of all time, Ride the Pink Horse is a tour-de-force that confirms Dorothy B. Hughes’ status as a master of the mid-century crime novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613162026
Publisher:	Penzler Publishers
Publication date:	03/02/2021
Series:	An American Mystery Classic
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	151,651
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Dorothy B. Hughes (1904–1993) was a mystery author and literary critic. Born in Kansas City, she studied at Columbia University and won an award from the Yale Series of Younger Poets for her first book, the poetry collection Dark Certainty (1931). After writing several unsuccessful manuscripts, she published The So Blue Marble in 1940, winning praise for its terse, hard-boiled prose.

Hughes published thirteen more novels, the best known of which are The Fallen Sparrow (1942), Ride the Pink Horse (1946), In a Lonely Place (1947). All three were made into successful films. In the early fifties, Hughes largely stopped writing fiction, preferring to focus on criticism, for which she would go on to win an Edgar Award. In 1978, the Mystery Writers of America presented Hughes with the Grand Master Award for literary achievement.

Sara Paretsky is the author of the bestselling V.I. Warshawski novels, including, most recently, Bleeding Kansas. Paretsky is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers’ Association. She lives in Chicago.

Editorial Reviews

"It’s a particular pleasure to recommend this novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, my favorite crime writer, which returns to circulation this month with a new (and insightful) introductory essay by Sara Paretsky."

The New York Times Sarah Weinman

"Nobody but Dorothy Hughes can cast suspense into such an uncanny spell, and she’s never done it better."

San Francisco Chronicle

★ 01/25/2021

Originally published in 1946, this standout noir from Hughes (1904–1993) opens with Sailor, a Chicago gangster, arriving in Santa Fe, N.Mex., where he has learned former Illinois senator Willis Douglass now lives. Back in Chicago, Douglass hired Sailor to murder his wife, but failed to pay Sailor the agreed-upon amount. To complicate matters, McIntyre, the head of Chicago’s homicide bureau, is in Santa Fe, apparently also on Douglass’s trail. Just how the crossing of paths of the politician, the cop, and the hit man will play out generates a high level of suspense. Though Sailor has many unappealing qualities, including his racism, Hughes manages to make him sympathetic. Evocative prose is a plus (“The bus traveled further across the wasteland; miles of nothing, just land, empty land. Land that didn’t get anywhere except into more land, and always against the sky the unmoving barrier of mountains”). Readers familiar with Hughes only from In a Lonely Place, filmed with Humphrey Bogart, will want to check out this entry in the American Mystery Classics series. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"[An] excellent novel . . . A sympathetic study of the development of a criminal."

New York Times

2021-01-13
Otto Penzler’s reprintings of Hughes’ suspense novels continue with her ninth, originally published in 1946.

The man whom everyone, including himself, calls Sailor has traveled from Chicago to Santa Fe in pursuit of former Sen. Willis Douglass. During the Sen’s tenure, Sailor was officially billed as his private secretary, but it’s clear that he was also his bagman, fixer, and whatever else. He’s followed the Sen to Santa Fe to demand money due him for services rendered in the shooting of Eleanor Douglass, the Sen’s well-insured wife. Sailor’s already been paid $500, but he thinks he’s due $1,000 more. Unfortunately for him, there are several bumps in the road. He’s not the only one with his eye on the quarry: McIntyre, the chief of Chicago Homicide, is also in town. The Sen, who’s already moved on to the companionship of society heiress Iris Towers, naturally denies owing his ex-employee any more money. And his visit coincides with the three days of Fiesta, during which there isn’t a hotel room, and scarcely a bathroom, to be had in town. Sailor’s befriended by a group of locals who range from Don José Patricio Santiago Morales y Cortez, the carousel operator Sailor dubs Pancho Villa, to a gaggle of schoolchildren whose hard childhoods remind him inescapably of his own earliest memories, very different but equally troubled. Hughes (1904-1993) burrows deep into her antihero’s mind and stays there, with conversations and pivotal events mostly erupting as breaks in his stream of consciousness. The effect is gripping and oddly touching.

An unforgettable portrait of a hireling who dreams of making it big even though he knows he’s no good.

Kirkus Reviews