Ride the Pink Horse

Ride the Pink Horse by Dorothy B. Hughes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dorothy B. Hughes can turn a phrase and keep the tension at high ebb. The Chicago swell's visit to a Santa Fe-like town in the middle of Fiesta as he hunts down "the rat" is a treat and a fine writing model.

“He didn't pay any attention to anything but the white-and-silver girl down in front. She belonged here; she was like something holy, like one of the altar candles, like an angel. He didn't pay any attention to the altar. There were priests up there chanting the litany; their white-and-gold benediction vestments draped over the red velvet chairs. There was a choir of seminarians singing. Singing the responses. Their faces were foreign like the town; brown Mexican faces, somber, and their voices, unaccompanied were like a heaven choir. He didn't care about that. He hadn't come here to pray; he'd come with a gun to keep his eye on a rat. He wasn't going to be sucked in by holiness.”

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