In the world of plentiful, cheap food that so many of us in the Western World have come to accept as our birthright, it takes sensational journalism and horrific television coverage to make us realise that not all of the world's population shares this abundance. Visits to the Soviet Bloc countries, to China, most African states and various other coun tries of the Third World make one quickly realise that widespread shortage of food is just over the horizon and would be common experi ence to all were it not for the advanced technologies of Western agricul ture, food production and food manufacture. Without doubt, pesticides and other agricultural chemicals have made enormous contributions to world food production - and indeed to world peace. The introduction of many food additives, especially antioxidants, has also contributed greatly to the amount and quality of food which is available, preventing early spoilage and waste, and possibly indirectly contributing to man's health, as these antioxidants have been shown to have beneficial proper ties in the prevention of experimental malignancy and cardiovascular disease. Nevertheless, despite the enormous benefits derived from the use of agrochemicals and food additives, it is essential to remember that these are all selectively toxic chemicals, with no absolute guarantee of safety, and where the benefit to risk ratio is always a compromise adjusted by the expediency of political and financial aspects of food production.
First in the Edgar Award–winning series from “a novelist whose champagne-fizzy mysteries tickle the brain, heart, and funny bone in equal measure” (A. J. Finn, #1 New York Times–bestselling author). Stewart Hoag’s first novel made him the toast of New York. Everyone in Manhattan wanted to be his friend, and he traveled the cocktail circuit supported by Merilee, his wife, and Lulu, his basset hound. But when writer’s block sunk his second novel, his friends, money, and wife all disappeared. Only Lulu stuck by him. The only opportunity left is ghostwriting—an undignified profession that still beats dental school. His first client is Sonny Day, an aging comic who was the king of slapstick three decades ago. Since he and his partner had a falling out in the late 1950s, Day has grown embittered and poor, until the only thing left for him to do is write a memoir. Hoagy and Lulu fly to Hollywood expecting a few months of sunshine and easy living. Instead they find Day’s corpse, and a murder rap with Hoagy’s name on it.
For the first time, the best work of a distinctive master of American noir is available in authoritative e-book editions from The Library of America. In Street of No Return (1954), David Goodis presents a skid row odyssey in which a famous crooner scarred by violence descends into dereliction. From its opening in the freezing wind of a November street corner through its explosive ending, it is imbued with Goodis’s deep identification with “the unchartered society of the homeless and the hopeless.” Other David Goodis novels available as Library of America E-Book Classics include: Nightfall, Dark Passage, The Moon in the Gutter, and The Burglar.
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