Safe Return Doubtful

Bill Balinger, a prolific American author and screen writer, has been credited with being the master of the noir thriller, and one of the foremost exponents of the dual storyline.

Portrait In Smoke was his first major success, published in 1950, and was later (in 1956) filmed as Wicked As They Come.
In parallel narratives, it initially concerns Danny April, the new owner of a small debt-collection agency in Chicago, and his obsessive search for Krassy Almauniski, the winner of a local beauty queen contest who has a shady background.

While Danny searches resolutely and single-mindedly, tracing her movements across the city, Krassy is set on achieving the high-life using her looks and a degree of cunning that enables her to get where she seeks to be.

Her unexpected rise to fame and wealth highlights the foolishness and peril of Danny’s desperate and misplaced infatuation.
The final scenes are particularly well done, and set it into the very special category.

James Ellroy rates it as one of his six favourite novels in a piece he wrote for Newsweek. Here’s what he says about it..

This is the ultimate evil woman novel. It’s set in mid-century Chicago, and charts the comeuppance of an obsessed bill collector and a stunningly provocative psychopath. Ooooooooh, Daddy-O — this one will lash your libido and bite your boogaloo!!!!!

My GoodReads score 4 / 5