Espionage, adventure and a hard-boiled heroine not to be trifled with – this classic noir will have you gripped from start to finish Julie Guilles is in trouble. She’s fled her home in Occupied France for a seedy neighbourhood in New York and has been laying low – but not low enough. Because now she has the Gestapo, the FBI and her shady Uncle, the Duc de Guille, all on her tail, and her options are running out. Whispers of the Blackbirder reach her – a sinister figure who, for the right price, can promise safe passage across the border to New Mexico. Finding the Blackbirder is her only chance of escape – but what if the Blackbirder doesn’t want to be found?’Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir’ New York Review of Books