The Reading Chair: “Dead Heat” by Benedek Totth

(Biblioasis International)

Imagine, if you will, S.E. Hinton typing dutifully away one night on her pioneering YA novel The Outsiders (“Gone With the Wind? Yeah! That’s a novel teenage boys’d devour!”). Suddenly the door flies open, lock shattering, hinges breaking. In storms Jean Genet or David Goodis or Jim Thompson. Ms. Hinton rises and flees her domicile (seeking help from a dissolute uncaring neighbor, or a dirty cop on patrol)…