Dreadful Summit

A teenage boy sets out to avenge his father in this noir novel from the author of Specialty of the House

Every sports fan in New York knows Al Judge, the hard-bitten reporter whose column is the scourge of gamblers, gangsters, and corrupt players across the city. Sixteen-year-old George LaMain is Judge’s biggest fan—until the night when his own father becomes the target of the journalist’s attacks, taken down in a public spectacle of violent humiliation.

Reeling from a moment that upends his whole worldview, George takes his father’s gun and sets out into the night on a quest for revenge. But before he can achieve the vigilante justice he seeks, the young man will make a series of discoveries that reveal an unsettling truth about the family he thought he knew. 

A noir-tinged coming of age novel by the master of the mystery story, Dreadful Summit is a riveting, atmospheric revenge novel rendered with both depth and suspense. It was included in the Haycraft-Queen cornerstone list of the greatest mysteries of all time, and inspired the 1951 Joseph Losey film The Big Night.

Ellin consistently wrote the best mystery stories of his time.”
—Lawrence Block

A striking, and dark novel. Recommended.”
—Martin Edwards

Stanley Bernard Ellin (1916–1986) was an American mystery writer born in Brooklyn, New York. His first book, a collection of short stories titled “The Specialty of the House” appeared in 1948 in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He was a three-time winner of the Edgar Allen Poe Award, for his short stories “The House Party” in 1954 and “The Blessington Method” in 1956, and for his novel The Eighth Circle in 1959. His novels Dreadful Summit, House of Cards, and The Bind were each adapted into feature films. A longtime member of the Mystery Writers of America, Ellin was awarded the group’s Grand Master Award in 1981.

Introduction by Andrew Klavan