David Goodis was one of the major writers of crime noir in the 1940s and '50s. Many of his best works were filmed to good effect, including DARK PASSAGE, with Bogart playing the lead, Tourneur's NIGHTFALL, Truffaut's SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, Sam Fuller's STREET OF NO RETURN, and THE BURGLAR. Goodis's novels painted bleak, black views of the inner-city life he himself lived, populated by losers and drunks. As Ed Gorman once said, Goodis didn't write novels, he wrote suicide notes. But his power lay in his ability to get down on paper the stark reality of the low-life he witnessed around him, before he too fell victim to the type of decline experienced by the characters he wrote about.

It's a tragedy that few of the eighteen novels Goodis wrote are currently in print. This is the first publication of THE BLONDE ON THE STREET CORNER since it originally appeared in a paperback edition in 1954. The story is set during the depression years of the 1930s, in Goodis's own home town of Philadelphia, and seems to be at least partly autobiographical. Ralph and his buddies are out of work, and jobs are not easy to find. He'd like to be a song-writer, but there's little hope of getting that kind of break. Christmas is coming and he needs some money, and the only other options involve crime and sex. With his usual talent for brilliant prose description and language, Goodis takes you effortlessly into the murky realms of depression America to meet the deadbeat characters who populate the streets and bars.

Midnight Classics are to be congratulated for reissuing this long-lost classic by one of the legendary writers of the hardboiled. It's to be hoped that more by Goodis follows from them soon. ( )