Safe Return Doubtful

Brown is a writer I’ve been meaning to get to for a while. He is highly regarded as a pulp author, but also for his flash fiction with a twist, and his science fiction. I read a particular recommendation for this by Lawrence Block, so thought I’d begin with it.

The title refers to the city of Chicago, and immediately the reader is immersed in a desperate working-class of the 1940s which puts in mind the noir classic films of the day, such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Out of the Past and Nightmare Alley.

18 year old Ed’s father is beaten in an alley one night, a seemingly motiveless murder. Not an admirer of his step-mother, Ed goes to his uncle Ambrose, who works in a travelling carnival, a train ride away. Ambrose is immediately suspicious of the motive, and the two team up to get some answers.

There’s so much pulp fiction that it’s hard to get a plot that is ingenious, but Brown has managed that here. But it’s the quality of his writing that hauls the reader in. Parts of the plot maybe a bit difficult to accept, but this is a coming of age story at its heart, and the attraction lies in the first person narration of Ed, and his rapid education in life on the streets at the hands of his uncle.

Published 1947 – My GoodReads score 4 / 5