Dread Journey (American Mystery Classics)

Dread Journey (American Mystery Classics) by Dorothy B. Hughes

Hollywood big-shot Vivien Spender has waited ages to produce the work that will be his masterpiece: a film adaptation of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. He's spent years grooming young starlets for the lead role, only to discard each one when a newer, fresher face enters his view. Afterward, these rejected women all immediately fall from grace: excised from the world of pictures, they end up in rehab, jail, or worse. But Kitten Agnew, the most recent candidate, won't be gotten rid of so easily -- her contract simply won't allow it. Accompanied by Mr. Spender on a train journey from Los Angeles to New York, she fears that the producer might be considering a deadly alternative. Something will happen before they reach their destination and, as the train barrels through America's heartland, the tension accelerates towards an inescapable finale.

Dread Journey is a taut thriller that exemplifies Dorothy B. Hughes's greatest strengths as a writer, written with sharpened prose and a mastery of psychological suspense.

Dorothy B. Hughes (1904 - 1993) was a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master who published fifteen novels, two of which (In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse) were adapted for film.