So Pale, So Cold, So Fair by Leigh Brackett

Originally published July 1957 in Argosy; this edition 1995

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Collected in: Hard-Boiled: An Anthology of American Crime Stories (ed. Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian)

M

(D, L, V)

Drug References {M} {Alcohol - getting drunk for grief, Tobacco}

Coarse Language {PG}

Violence {M}

Representations

Gender:

Women as people. Viewpoint character is male, but it is friendship between women that delivers the final impetus to get the story going. Although a woman is the victim of the piece, she was not a passive one.

Sex:

Heterosexuality only; development of chemistry under pressure.

Race & Ethnicity:

All characters US white so far as could tell.

Disability, Physical Diversity and Health:

One character has strong facial scarring from an attempt to silence him.

Awards

None found.

Notes

I was relieved and excited to turn the page and see Leigh Brackett's name as she was a noted genre author (mainly of science fiction) , although I suspect these days she is mostly known for her work on the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. The story itself was a relieving return to the detective-style story I have been preferring, rather than crime fiction as depicting the grim darkness of humanity, crime without resolution or 'hero'. The puzzle, more than the grime in the soul.

Liked this one a lot, and the writing while rating I quoted parts to friends, delighting in the logical menace laid out so skilfully by Brackett.