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Detour

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Detour

By: Martin M. Goldsmith
Narrated by: Mike Dennis
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About this listen

1938. Alexander Roth is hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles, hoping to reconnect with his self-absorbed, cutesy-poo girlfriend. A car stops to pick him up and he is soon plunged into a nightmare from which there may be no escape.

This is a forgotten noir masterpiece that has languished for decades in the swamps of neglected crime fiction. Movie director Edgar G Ulmer cranked out the movie version in less than a month on a microscopic budget for one of the "poverty row" studios in Hollywood, and it is now widely recognized as one of the greatest in the film noir genre. The novel is its equal in every way.

©2014 Open Water Publishing (P)2014 Open Water Publishing Crime Fiction
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I came to this story with the 1945 noir classic "Detour", directed by Edgar G Ulmer, firmly in mind. A film I have watched and enjoyed many a time and which truely gives meaning to the "Film Noir" motif, " A dame with a past and a man with no future". However, I found this source novel from 1938 by Martin M Goldsmith equally enjoyable. Whilst the film naturally concentrates on the three main characters,the novel developse the story of Sue, who is the cause of Alex's journey across America.The book also includes themes such as drugs, which could not pass the Hollywood Hays Code of the time. Narration by Mike Dennis is excellent and helps to ease the listener into the fatalistic world of "Detour".

Pulp Fiction To Film Noir

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