Another good reason not to hitchhike: Because when naval officer David Young does it in the opening pages of Donald Hamilton’s NIGHT WALKER, he gets conked out and wakes up in the hospital with his face in bandages and everyone calling him Larry Wilson, the man who answered his outstretched thumb. Since Young is then taken “home” by Wilson’s lovely wife Elizabeth, this would be all fine and good, until she informs him that this “is not our first kidnapping.” Young realizes his identity has been stolen by Wilson; what he doesn’t comprehend is why he’s been given Wilson’s in exchange. Needless to say, a murder help makes things more clear.

Another good reason you can’t trust women: Elizabeth is one of those classic femme fatales, whose deliciousness suggests duplicity, using her sex to her advantage, complicating our protagonist’s life as she weaves her “fabric of deceit.” Does she love her husband? Does she love her doctor? Does she love Young? Is she using none, one or all three of them to get what she wants? The story plays out in essentially one location; with a sinister figure lurking outside at dark, it recalls the single-setting nature of such tried-but-true mystery classics as THE BAT.

Another good reason to get this book: Hamilton’s novel is claustrophobic and tense (though not intense), packed with a number of twists, the most important of which I couldn’t see coming. Yet another lost gem brought back to life by Hard Case Crime, NIGHT WALKER was originally published half a century ago, one of Hamilton’s rare non-Matt Helm novels. An old pro, he strings you along like an expert puppeteer; in fact, as I approached each chapter’s end, I had a hard time keeping my eyes from jumping ahead to the last line. It has all the markings of the great detective fiction of its period, albeit without a detective. –Rod Lott

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