THE EXPENDABLE MAN - Dorothy B. Hughes

Hugh Denismore is a young doctor driving his mother’s Cadillac from Los Angeles to Phoenix to attend a family wedding. He is well educated, polite, and civilized - he is privileged.  Although he hesitates to pick up the young, female hitchhiker along his drive, he has a soft spot for the trouble she seems to be in and he hopes he can help her out in some way. She is equally hesitant to get in a car with Hugh, but perhaps the Cadillac changes her mind.

The girl doesn't provide a very clear, or consistent, story as to where she's headed, which convinces Hugh of her troubles. As they drive, they chat and she becomes more and more comfortable around Hugh - such that after dropping her off at the bus station and providing her with bus fare to where she wants to go, she turns up at his motel room. This would seem to be dangerous in a normal situation and is doubly so given that Hugh is a Black man.

A few days later, the girl is found dead and a tip leads the local police to Hugh who first denies knowing her (the name she provided was different than the name the police were using).  Hugh finds himself facing a murder charge and the police don't seem to want to look any further than the Black man who gave the girl a ride, so he knows he has to find the killer on his own.

This was a really difficult book for me to read. Not because it was bad or poorly written - just the opposite ... it was too good.

I can feel really anxious in some situations, one is when an innocent person is railroaded into looking guilty and the other is racial discrimination.  Combine them as well as author Dorothy B. Hughes does, and I was constantly fidgety and anxious and reading through this at breakneck speed to (hopefully) get to where both situations would resolve.

It was easy to read through this quickly - the writing is smooth and direct. There aren't a lot of extraneous characters and I really, really liked the support that Hugh gets from his family and his lawyer. It definitely helps the reader trust Hugh and root for him.  I can't imagine how any reader, even those who might otherwise have race issues, couldn't root for the man.

It's hard to believe that a book with these characters, in these situations, could be published and achieve success in the early 1960's and I suspect it rattled a few cages.  Sadly, I don't think the general consensus has changed much in Arizona.

Looking for a good book? The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes is a powerful story that goes well beyond the surface mystery and challenges moral perspectives and biases.

I received a digital copy of this book as part of a collection of novels, from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

The Expendable Man

author: Dorothy B. Hughes

publisher: Random House

hardcover, 245 pages

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