David Goodis is one of the most admired American noir writers of the last century. In this book, first published in 1946, Vince Parry, sentenced to life imprisonment in San Quentin for the murder of his wife, escapes. He tries to find out who framed him in an attempt to prove his innocence. He is harboured by a woman he doesn't trust, he is a fugitive from justice in the depths of despair. Parry's last throw is a desperate gamble to hide his identity from the law. Filmed in 1947 by Delmer Daves at Warner Brothers and starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall - it became a classic noir movie. Goodis then worked in Hollywood for Warner Brothers but in 1950 he returned to his native Philadelphia and continued to write paperback novels about man's inexorable decline into despair. He died in obscurity in 1967.