Review: Backwoods Tramp

Backwoods Tramp by Harry Whittington
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Slam-dunk, top-tier, classic that needs to be on your crime-noir reading list. Whittington's prose style is literary in the best sense: character-driven, nuanced, with lush concrete descriptions and absent cliche's and short-cuts. And yet he gives up none of the genre's plotting and pacing. The narrator is conflicted and driven. The villain is sublime. The femme-fatale, despite the title, is no tramp. So many of the scenes are riveting page-turners, especially the scenes with the three of them together. Was this never made into a movie? How is that possible? Loved everything about this one.