Walk the Dark Streets

William Krasner

By guest reviewer Nicholas Litchfield,
editor of the Lowestoft Chronicle

IN this dark and compelling mystery, a relentless detective’s pursuit of a nightclub hostess’s killer reveals a knot of extortion, broken dreams, and sordid connections inside the crumbling Marne Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, where desperation blurs the line between victim and suspect, and every character has something to hide.

First published in 1949 by Harper & Brothers and reissued the following year by Bantam Books, William Krasner’s debut stands as a notable early entry in the homicide procedural sub-genre. 

The novel earned an Edgar Award nomination for Best First Novel and was later adapted for television in the acclaimed US anthology series Studio One. Born in 1917 in St. Louis, Krasner served in the Second World War before earning a psychology degree from Columbia University. His literary career began with Walk the Dark Streets, which drew praise from crime writer Raymond Chandler who called Krasner’s work ‘above and beyond a whole host of writers’ better known at the time.

In 1955, Krasner received an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Reprinted for the first time in forty years, this taut detective story opens with the discovery of hostess Janice Morel’s body in her shabby room at the decaying Marne Hotel, its mottled grey and grimy façade reflecting the worn-down lives inside.

The case lands with Detective Captain Sam Birge whose caution stems from a past mistake that led to a wrongful execution. Birge’s methodical, compassionate style stands in sharp contrast to the cynicism around him. Early in the investigation, Birge encounters Mrs Fahey, a self-righteous neighbour quick to assert that Morel had ‘a different man in there almost every night,’ a refrain that captures the suspicion and judgement surrounding the Marne.

As Birge digs deeper, he reconstructs Janice’s history and a diary traces her transformation from the hopeful Jane Morelski to a woman extorted by her agent, Emmett Sanderson, and ultimately driven to blackmail herself.

The hotel’s other residents are drawn with equal care… the brusque, indifferent manager, a fragile hostess haunted by addiction, a blind musician, and a troubled chambermaid carrying burdens heavier than any mop and bucket. But suspicion soon falls on Harry Chapel, a labourer with a criminal record who regularly spent the night with Morel. When pressed by Birge’s assistant, Lieutenant Charley Hagen, who is hungry to close the case, Chapel panics and disappears.

Hagen’s impatience and ‘bitter resolve’ drive the pursuit deeper into St. Louis’s underworld, his utilitarian approach a sharp foil to Birge’s steady conscience. The investigation, meanwhile, draws Birge to Club Trinidad and its owner, Joe Marco, whose charm barely conceals his capacity for menace.

Marco controls his club and hotel with manipulation and intimidation, keeping his hands clean while profiting from vice. Each encounter peels back another layer of exploitation… hostesses, clients, and the city’s criminal network, all enmeshed in a cycle of survival and betrayal.

Krasner’s gritty, clear-eyed narrative moves at a steady pace, with Birge’s probing revealing the seediness and desperation of Janice’s world and exposing the uneasy, sometimes dangerous bonds between the Marne’s residents.

The New York Times described these characters as seeming ‘real and alive’ and undergoing the same poignant, tragic, and often terrifyingly senseless whims of fate that beset real people. The result is a haunting procedural that lingers long after the book is finished… a story that resists tidy resolutions and leaves its people, and their losses, echoing through the pages.
(Black Gat, paperback, £9.95)

⬛Nicholas Litchfield is an English-born author and journalist who lives in Western New York. He established the Lowestoft Chronicle, a quarterly online magazine, in 2009. It publishes short stories, flash fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, interviews and artwork.(lowestoftchronicle.com)