Books: How To Write A Thriller - In A Lonely Place By Dorothy B. Hughes

 (Drivebycuriosity) - Do you want to write a thriller? Maybe around 200 pages about a serial killer? Easy! First, You will need a map of Los Angeles. The City of Angels is world famous and stage of myriads of thrillers. You mention the names of streets, places and neighborhoods, like Wilshire Boulevard, Santa Monica Canyon, Westwood etc. They fill already about a third of the book. And everybody knows these names from novels of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and other writers.

You also need a protagonist. What about you young fellow, a good for nothing, who has no occupation. A guy who stays in someone else`s flat in LA, who is far away, and he lives from the checks of a trusting uncle (from he also steals). The guy has plenty of time, for whatever he´s up to. He also has good friend in LA, who is a cop, and he becomes acquainted with the friend`s friends, who are cops as well. And from the begin the reader senses that something is wrong with this fellow.

Dorothy B. Hughes published her novel "In a lonely Place" in the year 1947 (amazon) ). Apparently she tried to exploit the popularity of hard-boild thrillers by Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett and others, who also set their novels in Los Angeles. But Hughes`plot is unbelievable & ridiculous, especially the friendship with cops, who investigate the case of a series killer in LA.

The book got a lot attention, maybe because a woman and not a man dived, dives into the mind of an especially creepy and disillusioned young man. Some years later Patricia Highsmith wrote her Ripley series and did a much better job.