flex spas los angeles reviews

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A classic California noir with a feminist twist, this prescient 1947 novel exposed misogyny in post-World War II American society, making it far ahead of its time.

Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a city of promise and prosperity, but not for former fighter pilot Dix Steele.  To his mind nothing has come close to matching “that feeling of power and exhilaration and freedom that came with loneness in the sky.” He prowls the foggy city night—­bus stops and stretches of darkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out—seeking solitary young women. His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. Where is the good life he was promised? Why does he always get a raw deal? Then he hooks up with his old Air Corps buddy Brub, now working for the LAPD, who just happens to be on the trail of the strangler who’s been terrorizing the women of the city for months...

Written with controlled elegance, Dorothy B. Hughes’s tense novel is at once an early indictment of a truly toxic masculinity and a twisty page-turner with a surprisingly feminist resolution. A classic of golden age noir, In a Lonely Place also inspired Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ NYRB Classics; Reprint edition (August 15, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1681371472
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1681371474
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.5 x 8 inches
Reviewer: Doctor Moss
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A True Classic Noir Ride
Review: This is a very good book, and very different from the classic movie based on it. Its themes run hard through noir as a genre, through masculinity and femininity, and through the power to define life’s challenges.It is true noir, not a mystery. We know Dix Steele, the unsympathetic main character, to be a murderer, a serial murderer, from the beginning. The question is why, and what’s next?Dix is a returning WWII vet, a former fighter pilot. He comes to Los Angeles to sublet an apartment from an old college acquaintance, Mel Terriss.Taking over Terriss’ apartment, clothes, and car gives Dix a patina of status. He looks like any guy who's making it. But he’s not. He’s living off an allowance from his uncle while he ostensibly tries his hand at becoming a professional writer.None of this stuff is really working,What he actually does is play the role of a guy who's making it, biding time while he fails to write and while what money he has runs out.In the meantime he watches and thinks about women. Women fall into the same constellation of the guy not making it, resenting not making it, not being a somebody like he was when he was a fighter pilot during the war, and keeping up appearances. Women are out of reach, the women that the guys who are really making it make it with.On a reliable monthly cycle, the swirl of resentment, frustration, and misogyny boils over, and someone dies. A woman, strangled.Dix the former fighter pilot also enjoys the chase. He’s addicted to a downward spiral of suspicion and anger in the chase of a woman. And he’s drawn into a chase with his wartime buddy, Brub Nicolai, now a detective for the Los Angeles PD.The heart of the novel then flows and crashes through his game of cat and mouse with Brub (and Brub’s clever and perceptive wife, Sylvia) and his chase of his dreamgirl, Laurel Gray. Laurel may have her own faults, but she doesn’t deserve Dix. Her faults only serve to light Dix’s fuse.It’s got that great noir feel of nothing-good-can-come-of-this. And it doesn’t, not to give anything away, since it’s pretty clear from the beginning. Dix is flawed and self-destructive to the core, and it goes back through all the murders to the original in the series of women he didn’t make it with, Brucie in Scotland, before he returned to America from the war.When you read the novel, it’s as much a ride you’re getting on as a story you’re following. And since it’s written from Dix’s perspective, you get to go down the same black hole he’s going down.The movie version, like I mentioned, is really a different story. It was cut off at the knees by Joseph Breen and the Motion Picture Code. The serial murderer was out, and the probably innocent suspect was in.The misogyny survived, which we might want to reflect on a bit. “Woman” here is an opponent, an object of psychological struggle. You see it especially in Dix’s relationship with Brub’s wife Sylvia, as well of course as Laurel. He wrestles constantly, in his own mind, with what he thinks to be Sylvia’s suspicions. It begins the moment he meets her.Dix’s ill-fated relationship with Laurel is romantic by contrast, but romance here is also a psychological struggle, mainly Dix vs. Dix. Because it’s inside Dix, it’s a struggle between Dix and every woman, automatically. An opponent before she even enters the scene, as happened with Sylvia.In Dix’s mind, the relationship between men and women is a predator/predator relationship, and it becomes self-confirming as a threatened woman fights back.This is great noir stuff.Just to add, Megan Abbott’s Afterword is short but so straightforwardly incisive that it’s hard to review the book without borrowing from her. It’s well placed as an “afterword” — so don’t read it until you’ve read the book.

Reviewer: fra7299
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Crime novel and character study
Review: Dorothy Hughes offers a different perspective in her noir novel In a Lonely Place. Using an outside point of view, she still manages to take you inside the head of Dix Steele, a strangler who preys on unsuspecting women and becomes the focus of a manhunt. We follow his path and see that he does and thinks, so his unstableness becomes evident from the get go. In this way, Hughes creates not only an impressive crime novel, but the character study of a killer's downward spiral.Gone are the jabs and cynicism of some noir, but the author replaces these with effective attention to detail. She creates the atmosphere of alienation and isolation that her main character experiences, and then transforms the mood to one of mayhem and tension. A skillful writer will not belabor the point and give you every answer to a character's profile, and Hughes allows us to make our own judgments about the hows and whys of Steele's mental state, giving us glimpses and clues without revealing too much. It's equally fascinating--and unnerving--how we get to stew around in Steele's brain at points, which fluctuates between despair, sadness, isolation, anger, madness and insecurity. His cocky demeanor and "thrill-seeking" attitude are truly psychopathic in nature, and Hughes' ability to dig this deep into a character's psyche is truly remarkable (and, effectively disturbing).While the plot follows a semi -traditional "killer on the loose" crime scenario, clearly the author does a masterful job of keeping several key characters "in the dark" as to the nature and details of the crimes, and this makes for a rewarding mystery as to the outcome (even though, as readers, the criminal's intent is right in front of us). As events unravel, Hughes has a compelling way of almost taking an unreliable narrative approach to the point of view, particularly toward the end.If there is a negative, it is the dialogue between characters, which is a bit flat and forced. I found this evident especially in the scenes with Dix and Laurel.Over all, though, In a Lonely Place was an impressive noir, a character study of the criminal mind and a suspenseful read that builds to a final, skillful conclusion.There's also a brilliant and insightful afterward by Lisa Maria Hogeland that analyzes the novel and its characters in depth.

Reviewer: Guitar Guy
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: One of the best noir books ever written. The movie version with Bogart has always been one of my favourites. But the book is much richer and even more compelling. A true masterpiece.

Reviewer: GlosKat
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A fantastic noir crime novel of the highest standard. If you're a fan of Chandler then you will love this novel, with its sparse prose, cast of damaged characters, and LA post war setting. The identity of the murderer is not definitely revealed until well into the book, and I am appalled at how many reviewers are giving this away. Don't they realise that many people read the reviews before buying the book ? Please, please if you are going to review this book don't ruin for other readers by giving the murderer's identity away. We might think we have guessed, but its not until nearly the end of the book before we find out if we are right or, as often happens in crime thrillers, there is a twist we (maybe) never saw coming. And if you are one of those reviewers who give it away, please consider rewording your review to take this plot spoiler (nay, plot ruiner) out.

Reviewer: Gordon Ely
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I can see why Dorothy B Hughes was so popular .She grabbed my attention and never let go . I will read more of her books , and soon .

Reviewer: Linda
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I am quite impressed with this book. You know years ago I wouldn't read anything this old because I thought they would be boring. I am glad to say the more I read of these early novels the more I enjoy them.

Reviewer: Michael Riley
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: It would not be a spoiler to tell you that the narrator is a seriel killer. The tension in the book comes from spotting if or when he makes a mistake and reveals himself. Set in LA is it s short and exciting read. Recommended