Expendable Man by Dorothy B. HughesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book did nothing to alter the unblemished record of Persephone books in my eyes. I have still yet to read one of the beautiful grey volumes I didn't like. This one was gripping from the moment we encounter the young intern Doctor Densmore on his journey to a family event in Phoenix. Along the way we meet the first of a number of memorable characters and the crime story unfolds with unremitting tension.
Several of the characters have a life so well drawn that I would have been happy to have met them again in future volumes: The lovely judge's daughter Ellen, colourful lawyer Skye Houston (pronounced Howston in this case) and pragmatic Marshal Hackaberry for example, not to mention his brutal and bigoted minions. I could easily imagine a series based on this community but unfortunately this was Dorothy Hughes' last novel.
The background to the book, (which was first published in 1963, a year seared into the memory of everyone alive at the time) is a South-Western America in a time of huge tension and social change. The story gives us a vivid insight into both changing attitudes to race and class and the reluctance of many to acknowledge these changes. One of those books you long to return to when forced to put it down and one with an atmosphere so real that it and its dramatis personae will live long in the memory.
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