Dark Passage

Originally serialized in The Saturday Evening Post, Dark Passage was David Goodis's breakthrough novel — one that became not just a popular crime novel but also a successful film starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The book's story is a dark and unsettling one about a man (Vincent Parry) who is wrongly convicted of killing his wife and seeks to prove his innocence after breaking out of San Quentin. Goodis's skill is not just his ability to paint an intense psychological profile of Parry (much of the book focuses on interior thoughts) but also to create a strong setting in 1940s San Francisco. Recommended.