A man, David Stillman, leaves a New York City office building during a power outage and sees a crowd gathered around a dead man in the street who fell from the building. Thus begins an intriguing, well-written (except for a few overwritten passages) cat and mouse game throughout the city as David is pursued and accosted by assorted thugs and entranced by a beautiful woman who seems to be involved with the bad guys. The only trouble is, David comes to realize that he can't remember anything beyond the past three years, and after a little bit of that, he isn't sure who he is himself. In trying to unravel the mystery, he meets an unhelpful psychologist, an unsuccessful private eye, and a few other oddball characters who give this novel a lot of spice. I'm not sure at the end that author Fast truly succeeds in wrapping things up into a ball tight enough not to come unraveled, but the book's sustained level of tension and atmospheric use of its New York City background makes it quite memorable. Fast wrote this book under one of his pseudonyms, Walter Ericson, but when reissued in 1965 in conjunction with a Gregory Peck film version, his own name was used. ( )

Opera prima de Howard Fast, que debió publicar bajo el seudónimo de Walter Ericson. Fast, fue uno de los escritores malditos durante la Caza de Brujas de MacCarthy. Se trata de una novela policiaca inquietante. De hecho, se trata de una novela policiaca metafísica.