Review: Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes

 

Sailor has come from Chicago to a small city (Santa Fe?) in New Mexico to get money from the Sen who is ex-senator Willis Douglas of Illinois. In the past, Sailor had worked for the Sen as his secretary.

Sailor arrives in the city and discovers that the Fiesta is going on. He cannot find a hotel room; they are all filled for the fiesta. Leaving his heavy suitcase at the desk at one of the hotels, he goes out to see the Fiesta and find the Sen. He walks into a world that he does not understand. There are Hispanics, Indians, and Gringos. They are speaking Spanish which he doesn't understand.

The descriptions are wonderful. The smell, the noise, the crowd pushing and shoving, the cheapness of everything, and the enjoyment the crowd seems to find in it all. Sailor comes to an old hand-operated Merry-Go-Round called Tio Vivo and meets the owner whom he calls Pancho. Pancho is an indian and will later in the book become a friend of Sailor.

Sailor also encounters McIntyre, a policeman from Chicago, who is here to watch the Sen. He is here to find out who murdered the senator's wife. McIntyre has gotten a fiesta costume of a red sash and a black hat with baubles. He seems to be everywhere and sees everything that Sailor does.

Sailor is isolated and afraid. He has no place to spend the night, he doesn't understand the people or the language. He is caught between his disdain of the poor people at the Fiesta, and his hatred of the rich people who have rooms at the best hotel in the city. He is afraid of both the Sen and McIntyre. He puts his faith in the revolver that he clutches in the right pocket of his jacket.

This is an excellent Noir novel. It was published in 1946. It has been reissued and is available at Amazon. It was made into a movie in 1947 which starred Robert Montgomery.