Ride the Pink Horse (American Mystery Classics)

Ride the Pink Horse (American Mystery Classics) by Dorothy B. Hughes

Senator Willis Douglass isn't a senator anymore; when his tenure ended, he left Chicago, a trail of corruption, and a murder rap behind and ran off to Santa Fe. He left his fixer, Sailor, behind as well, but Sailor, anxious to collect the blood money he'd been promised for their last wicked deed, followed soon thereafter with blackmail on his mind. There's just one problem when Sailor arrives in New Mexico, a yearly carnival has filled the hotels -- and the streets -- with out-of-towners, leaving him suddenly homeless amid a frenzied celebration.

Down and out in a strange land, Sailor must rely on the kindness of strangers to survive -- a task made all the more challenging by his own bigotry. And when another man from Chicago appears in town with his own score to settle, Sailor's simple shake-down becomes a lot more complicated.

A tough and gritty novel that confronts the racism its author observed in her Southwestern home, Ride the Pink Horse is the hardboiled tale that inspired one of the most beloved film noir of all time.

Dorothy B. Hughes (1904 - 1993) was a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master who published fifteen crime novels, as well as works of literary criticism, biography, poetry, and history.