Walk the Dark Streets
by William Krasner.
Bantam, 1950. First Edition. Paperback. 197 pages.
Janice Morel, an aging actress, works in a run-down nightclub. One night she’s discovered naked in her hotel room, knifed under her left breast, dead.
The suspects…
- The nightclub owner
- Her dishonest agent
- A close friend
- A blind musician living down the hall
- A waitress
- The chambermaid
Can Captain Sam Birge and Lt. Charley Hagen solve the case?
Hard to believe this garnered an Edgar nomination in 1949. While Krasner can deftly draw a setting, it was difficult to delineate between Birge and Hagen. The characters stayed flat on the page, and the victim remained lifeless.
Filled with the requisite gathering of suspects and false ending, reading "Walk" could prove to be a good study for writing techniques. Otherwise, skip it.
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