Prentiss Riddle's Reviews > Ride the Pink Horse

Hard-boiled noir by a woman author, published in 1946! I figured this would be interesting as a historical document, at least. But alas, the historic interest wasn’t enough to keep me engaged. The book is all atmosphere with almost no plot, certainly not a mystery, nor even a Highsmith-style howtheydunit. The protagonist just runs in circles for three days, dragging the reader along. I suppose there’s a term paper to be written about the protagonist’s casual racism that grudgingly turns into gratitude to the locals who show him kindness, a redemption which at this remove just looks like a kinder, more patronizing form of othering. But I was hoping for a page-turner, and sadly this was a slog.