9798886012187
Stark House Press, 2026
originally published 1952 (serialized in Cosmopolitan)
170 pp
paperback
I started this book yesterday afternoon, fully intending to read just a few chapters. But one chapter became another, and then another, until I was hopelessly hooked. Before I knew it, this novel had completely hijacked my afternoon, and I founIid myself having to reheat the previous night's leftovers for dinner.
I've read only a handful of books by Patrick Quentin, all featuring Broadway producer Peter Duluth and his wife, Iris (and you absolutely must read the introduction by Curtis Evans in Black Widow that explains the fascinating background and history behind the author). The Duluth novels are only part of the story, however. As noted at Stop, You're Killing Me!, a number of crime and mystery novels appeared not only under the Patrick Quentin name, but also under the pseudonyms Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge. But we're back to the Duluth series with this story and as it begins, Iris has gone off without Peter to Jamaica with her mother for mom's surgical recovery. Not unusually, his neighbor Lottie Marin, calls him after midnight the same day to come up to her place for a party. He doesn't really want to go, but he misses Iris so he decides to go up for a bit. Lottie, as he describes her is "nosy, bossy, and insufferably demanding," but he and Iris were "fond of her." She is also the star of Peter's current production and is married to Brian Mullen, a man the opposite of Iris in temperament. Having had enough of Lottie after arriving at her apartment, Peter looks for "someone non-theatrical to talk to," and failing that, was ready to go home. It is then that Peter is approached by an aspiring young writer named Nanny Ordway, who is looking for someone to talk to. She strikes him as somewhat vulnerable and more than a little out of place among the partygoers, and there is something about her unaffected manner that Peter finds refreshing. Their conversation soon moves from the party to a quick dinner elsewhere, which Peter sees as an opportunity to step, if only briefly, “out of my own restricted circle.” After some time, Peter allows Nanny to use his apartment as a quiet place to write while he is at work every day, with the arrangement to be over once Iris returns home. His relationship with Nanny he notes, is
"one of those relationships that fall into no fixed category but happen all the time. There were no strings to it at all. Either of us could stop it tomorrow or it could go on indefinitely."
Their relationship remains, for all intents and purposes, platonic, and Peter has “no qualms about his motives” where Nanny is concerned. He is convinced that there is “not the remotest chance” of either of them falling in love with the other. But when Iris returns and his relationship with Nanny comes to an abrupt end, what Peter had always considered a harmless friendship suddenly takes on a far darker and more suspicious appearance.
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| 1952 Inner Sanctum mystery edition, from ebay |
As he struggles to convince others that there was nothing improper about their relationship—and searches for answers that might salvage what remains of his life, Peter begins to lose his footing in a world that grows increasingly hostile and uncertain. And at each step as he learns more about Nanny, a chilling image begins to take shape in his mind:
“a gray, unobtrusive little spider spinning delicate, devious webs, crouching in dark corners, crouching only to spring down the threads at her victims.”
In this installment of Stark House's Film Noir Classics series, Patrick Quentin successfully takes a seemingly-innocent encounter and spins it into a darkly suspenseful tale of paranoia, shifting appearances, and a man who gradually finds himself caught in a trap he never saw coming. And all the while, Nanny remains a somewhat elusive figure, while the mystery surrounding her casts an ever-darkening shadow of suspicion, paranoia, and mounting dread that is maintained throughout the novel. The result is a truly worthy noir, a beyond-sinister mystery that is also beyond difficult to put down.
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Peggy Ann Garner, from 1954 film adaptation Black Widow |
The movie, for me, was not nearly as good as the novel, but then again they rarely are. All in all it gave us both a solid evening's entertainment although my spouse enjoyed it way more than I did. Van Heflin does a bang-job here as Peter, stuck in a horrific situation which is rapidly slipping out of his control and heading towards the deep end. Still, there's something missing here that keeps the film from getting quite as deeply under your skin as the book does. While reading I had the growing sense of how claustrophobic the That said, the film never quite gets under your skin in the same way Quentin's novel does. In the novel, Quentin gradually closes the walls around Peter, creating an almost suffocating sense of unease as his world shrinks and the trap tightens. The film, by comparison, never quite generates that same sort of claustrophobic feeling. While the novel slowly closes the walls around Peter, allowing its tension and unease to build until the reader can almost feel the trap tightening, the film moves at such a brisk pace that it never has quite enough time to create the same depth or sense of mounting dread. I also have to say that one of the best, yet shortest performances in this film came from Hilda Simms, who played the former hat check girl from Sylvia's. Good lord -- what great acting! She is also the subject of a book I finished last year when reading different books about the blacklist era in Hollywood called Red-Stained: The Life of Hilda Simms by Jokeda Bell (Minnesota Historical Society, 2024).
The novel is a definite yes which I highly recommend; the film tries hard but it's not quite on the same level as the book, and you really want to read the novel before watching the film. Vintage readers, noir readers, and fans of truly dark mystery/crime fiction will love it. My thanks to the powers that be at Stark House for my copy.
