A dark, brooding masterpiece of guilt, greed, and lust in a town ripe for felony. Madox wasn't all bad. He was just half-bad. But trap a man like Madox in a dead-end job in a stultifying small town, introduce him to a femme fatale like the Harshaw woman, and give him a shot at a fast fifteen thousand dollars--in a bank just begging to be knocked over--and his better nature doesn't stand a chance. Merciless in its suspense, flawless in its grasp of the ways in which ordinary people hurtle over the edge,The Hot Spotis a superb example of fiftiesroman noir.